What is the new momentum endorsing China’s goal?

BEIJING, March 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — A news report by China.org.cn on China’s GDP growth target for 2025:

The third session of the 14th National People’s Congress is held in Beijing on March 5th. At the opening meeting, Premier Li Qiang delivered the government work report, in which he announced China’s GDP growth target for 2025 to be around 5%. This number has been put under the spotlight.

In recent years, China’s economy has faced increased external pressure and growing domestic challenges. But we believe that based on the current situation of China’s economy, new strengths are standing out, which will become new momentum that drives China’s economy towards realizing its 2025 target.

Firstly, significant enhancement in technological innovation capacity plus a solid foundation in industrial development will lay strong groundwork for achieving the target on the industrial side. Recently, tech “dark horse” DeepSeek amazed the world, and that is a peek into China’s strong impetus in cutting-edge technologies and industries including AI, biotechnologies, aerospace development, and the digital economy. According to data in 2024, China’s innovation index ranking has risen to 11th worldwide, being the fastest climber on the innovation capacity ladder in a decade. These will not only improve the development of high-tech industries, but also lend new growth drivers to high-tech manufacturing and the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries.

For example, in the apparel industry, the cycle from receiving an order to final shipment used to take about a month. Now with AI technologies, some companies can not only come up with new style designs based on the personalized needs of customers, but also quickly select the proper textile, which cut the original one-month lead time to five to seven days.

In a macro scope, big data and artificial intelligence have catalyzed the birth of new business models such as intelligent factories and intelligent workshops, which will greatly enhance the efficiency of the national economy while lowering transaction costs.

Secondly, the constant emergence of “new talents” will provide a talent pool abundant enough for China to realize its development goal. China is home to a population of 1.4 billion, among which more than 400 million are in the middle-income bracket; although the absolute size of the working-age population has decreased, the improvement of the average education levels among all citizens still ensures an increase in human capital stock over a relatively long term. Technological innovation drives the emergence of new technologies represented by AI, and generates relevant new occupations, which gives rise to the constant emergence of new talents, while reforming enterprises’ employment models and staffing structures. These will serve as an “intelligent” growth driver for China to pursue innovation-driven high-quality development.

In addition, the “raft of incremental policies” has become increasingly targeted and effective. The 2025 government work report has provided comprehensive deployments in fiscal, monetary, and industries policies, etc. This will become a constant booster for the internal driving forces in China’s economy. With these policies, China’s market expectations can be effectively elevated, and its private economy further developed, which will in turn spur the rise in employment rates and price recovery, stimulate consumption and production, and help alleviate the lack of effective domestic demand.

In 2025, the international landscape will continue changing, but China’s economic growth will remain unchanged in its positive trajectory. With new growth drivers being fostered, the country can be expected to realize sustained economic recovery and growth.