BEIJING (Xinhua) -- At the week-long 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that concluded Saturday in Beijing, a blueprint for China's future development was drawn up.

At a time when the global economy is facing a difficult situation this year, with likely even more difficult prospects next year, China's economic outlook holds global significance. While expressing confidence in China's future growth, business communities around the world believe that China's innovation-driven modernization and growth move will inject more certainty into the global economy.
- Quality development is beneficial to all
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said while delivering a report at the CPC congress that China will accelerate the establishment of a new development pattern and pursue high-quality development.

"We must fully, correctly and comprehensively implement new development thinking, adhere to the direction of reform in the socialist market economy and high-level openness to the outside, and accelerate the establishment of a new development pattern that takes the domestic macroeconomic cycle as its basis and is characterized by mutual reinforcement between the two domestic economic cycles," Xi said. and international.”

Expressing deep admiration for the remarks, Weichai Kinchong Choi, senior vice president of leading Thai bank Kasikornbank, said he can see China's future development direction is more focused on high-quality sustainable development, adding that "this is good news for Thailand and other neighboring countries."

He noted that in the past few years, many Chinese high-tech companies have set up factories in Thailand, which is exactly what Thailand needs, noting that they have helped the Thai economy to transform and modernize, and enhance its competitiveness.

Over the past decade, China's GDP has come to account for 18.5 percent of the global economy. China has become a major trading partner of more than 140 countries and regions, leading the world in the total volume of trade in goods. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, China, which has managed to coordinate the fight against the pandemic and continued economic development, has been maintaining the stability of global supply chains and industry, while continuing to advance the global economic recovery.

Moreover, its development is not achieved at the expense of the environment. Instead, China is striving to make its development greener and more sustainable. In pursuit of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, the country has reduced its carbon emission intensity by 34.4 percent over the past 10 years, vowing to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

According to Chen Honghuang, global executive vice president of German multinational software company SAP SE and president of SAP Greater China, China's green development will profoundly change the global landscape in the fields of energy, environment and economy.

"Chinese companies are using digital technology to make carbon emission data transparent and quantifiable, and promote the balance between green development and commercial development," Huang said.

Meanwhile, China's renewed commitment in the report of the CPC congress to promoting high-level opening-up also struck a chord with the international business community. The success of US automaker Tesla in China demonstrates Beijing's determination to continue opening up.

Tesla Vice President Tao Lin said that thanks to the Chinese government's efforts to facilitate foreign investment, Tesla has become the first wholly foreign-owned car company in China, adding that the US company seeks to further expand its presence in the Chinese market.

German heat exchanger company "Kelveon (China)" started operations in China more than 20 years ago. Zheng Wenwu, general manager of the company, said doing business in China has become easier.

Referring to China's efficient market mechanism and standardized administrative process that is convenient and fast, Cheng said changes over the past years have reduced costs for companies, facilitated market access, and helped companies adapt to international rules, which has benefited companies' operations.

Chinese style update means more opportunities

Chinese style modernization, a key term defining China's journey to national rejuvenation, and another buzzword in the CPC report, has sparked heated debate in both domestic and overseas business communities.

It contains elements common to modernization processes in all countries, but more importantly, it incorporates characteristics of the Chinese context. It is modernization involving a large population, common prosperity for all, material and cultural-moral progress, harmony between people and nature, and peaceful development.

For entrepreneurs in many parts of the world, Chinese-style modernization means more opportunities.

Jose Antonio Hidalgo, former president of the Ecuadorian China Chamber of Commerce, said that Chinese-style modernization will generate positive impact in the global context, especially for Ecuador's agri-food sector.

"It is an opportunity for us because middle-class consumers (in China) will need excellent quality agricultural food and will look for it in countries like ours," he said.

In 2021, China announced that after eight years of hard work between late 2012 and late 2020, the country had lifted the last 98.99 million poor rural people living below the current poverty line out of poverty, writing off all 832 and 128 poor counties and villages. Alpha straight from the poverty list. And now the country has the largest middle-income class in the world -- 400 million people. This means huge potential for consumption.

Hamdi Al-Tabbaa, head of the Jordanian Businessmen Association, also sees opportunities in the Chinese path towards modernization.

Al-Tabbaa said that China's continuous efforts to improve people's living standards mean a further expansion of the middle-income class and modernization of the consumption structure, which will provide more development opportunities for global companies.

From opening the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank to taking the lead in implementing the United Nations' sustainable development agenda, China has always shared its development gains with the rest of the world.

Woody Guo, senior vice president and managing director of Herbalife Nutrition in China, said the CPC report underscores the certainty of the Chinese market in the face of global market uncertainty, and makes foreign companies feel reassured about their development in China.

Sarah Vermeulen-Anastasi, head of group communications at Swiss technology group Oerlikon, said that Chinese-style modernization "will provide more opportunities and possibilities, not only in terms of market growth, but also in terms of employment," adding, "We will be able to attract More engineers as we have more choice of new technologies."

Innovation inspires a new impetus

As China revitalizes its economy, it has made innovation a top priority in its planning. The World Intellectual Property Organization said that the country ranked 12th on the 2021 Global Innovation Index, up from 34th in 2012. It ranked first among middle-income economies.

"We should take science and technology as our primary productive force, talent as our primary resource, and innovation as our primary engine for growth," Xi said in the report.

"It's all about innovation," said Stephen Perry, chairman of the British 48 Club Foundation, adding that China is forward-looking, as in every sector, and China has a dynamic of "wanting to know where the world is going."

In the midst of the innovation drive, the number of Chinese companies included in the "Fortune Global 500" list has increased, with 145 Chinese companies reaching the list in 2021, up from 95 in 2012, as part of a continuous increase for 19 consecutive years.

In terms of communication infrastructure, the country has built the world's largest 5G network, with a total of 1.43 million network base stations installed across the country by the end of 2021, accounting for more than 60 percent of the world's total.

Supported by technological progress, China has accelerated the construction of high-speed transportation networks. With the most advanced high-speed rail network in the world, China now has more than 40,000 km of high-speed rail lines in operation.

Oswaldo Navarro of Jalisco, an agricultural-producing state in Mexico, purchased several pieces of farming and land-processing equipment from China.

He told Xinhua that the seed cleaning machine he imported from China has a daily cleaning capacity two to three times that of equipment from other countries, which saves a lot of time and cost.

Navarro said China's increasing efforts in science and education will help turn scientific and technological achievements into productive achievements.

Hicham Charfi, an Algerian businessman working for a consulting company in the field of technology and industrial innovation, said that China shares advanced development models and achieves economic integration with other countries, which improves the well-being of people in various countries through advanced technologies.

He said that Chinese innovation will appear in many areas important to human society in the future.