Opinion

1. Accelerating green transition of economic and social development

Promoting green and low-carbon transformation in economic and social development is a critical step toward achieving high-quality development. As emphasized in the Central Economic Work Conference, coordinated efforts need to be made in 2025 to advance carbon reduction, pollution control, afforestation, as well as accelerating green transition of economic and social development on all fronts. China has introduced targeted measures on the integration of pollution reduction and carbon mitigation.

2. Strengthening efforts to safeguard and improve people’s livelihoods

People's well-being is of paramount importance in China’s modernization drive. Over the past year, various measures have been made to actively address pressing public concerns, while advancing social security and public service systems. Safeguarding and improving people's livelihoods, and enhancing people’s sense of gain, happiness and security is highlighted as one of the key tasks in 2025 from the Central Economic Work Conference. A series of reforms in livelihood-related areas have been rolled out recently, targeting the most urgent and practical issues, so as to advance public welfare.

Policy

1. The General Office of the State Council has issued guidelines to accelerate efforts to build China into a country with a strong financial sector and promote development in five major areas, namely, technology finance, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance and digital finance.

2. A notice on the equity investment pilot program by financial asset management companies was released by the National Financial Regulatory Administration. The program aims to guide China’s banking and insurance sectors to channel more funds into early-stage startups, long-term research and development projects.

Data

1. China's central bank conducted RMB 1.4 trillion reverse repos in February. The move aims to keep liquidity in the banking system at an adequate level, the central bank said.

2. The GDP of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) in 2024 expanded by 8.8 percent year-on-year in real terms to 403.3 billion patacas (about USD 50.4 billion), the SAR's Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) said.

3. According to the National Development and Reform Commission, over 98 percent of the 102 major projects in the 14th Five-Year Plan have achieved their planned goals, providing strong support for high-quality economic and social development.

4. According to Nanjing Customs, the import and export value of private enterprises in Jiangsu in 2024 was RMB 2.55 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 7.3 percent. The number of private enterprises that conducted import-export activities in Jiangsu has reached 80,400, an increase of 10 percent compared to the previous year, accounting for more than 80 percent of the total number of import and export enterprises in the province.

5. The number of private enterprises in China had reached 56.707 million as of the end of January. This figure is 5.2 times the size of 2012, data from the State Administration for Market Regulation showed.

6. China Commodity Price Index for February was 112.6 points, up 1.3 percent month on month, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing announced on March 5.

7. The annual production of new energy vehicles exceeded 13 million units in 2024, according to the government work report.

8. China's local government debt risks have been effectively mitigated. As of March 5, local governments had issued bonds totaling RMB 2.96 trillion (about USD 413 billion) aimed at replacing existing debt, Minister of Finance Lan Fo'an told a press conference on March 6.

9. The total market dividend reached RMB 2.4 trillion in 2024, hitting a new record, Wu Qing, Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said at the economy-themed press conference during the Third Session of the 14th National People's Congress on March 6.

10. The prosperity index of China's retail industry was 50.2 percent, an increase of 0.1 percentage point compared to the previous month. The vitality of the consumer market is steadily increasing, according to the China General Chamber of Commerce.

(Source: Economic Daily)