Raring to Navigate Pivotal Phase of Reform:
China’s sharpened focus on advancing technological innovation and fostering new quality productive forces has come in for big praise from Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs as well as industry experts, encouraging them to double down on research and development for technological breakthroughs and to pursue new opportunities arising from the country’s industrial upgrade.
The mounting enthusiasm came after the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, a crucial meeting that adopted a resolution on further deepening reforms comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization.
The resolution detailed a set of meticulously crafted reform plans, and called for improving existing institutions and mechanisms to foster new quality productive forces, in line with local conditions.
Zhang Li, director of the China Center for Information Industry Development, a Beijing-based think tank, highlighted the significance of institutional and mechanism innovation, describing it as a key characteristic to nurture new quality productive forces.
Steel Industry to Further Green Push:
China’s steel industry is expected to further green transformation in pursuit of sustainable and high-quality development despite challenges, experts and government officials said.
Liu Bingjiang, chief engineer of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, stressed the importance of maintaining strategic focus and tenacity within the industry for advancing low-carbon transformation.
“Supported by digital and intelligent advancements, we are integrating green practices into the steel industry, persistently advancing high-quality development by safeguarding our ecological and environmental integrity,” Liu said.
The steel industry has been playing a substantial role in enhancing China’s air quality through a series of initiatives like supply-side structural reform, ultra-low emission transformation and vigorous energy efficiency enhancement programs.
“Yet, the industry continues to grapple with the arduous tasks of pollution reduction and carbon mitigation, with underlying structural issues yet to be fully addressed,” he said.
Economic Reforms Help Foreign Firms Better Develop:
China’s deepening economic reforms and faster pace of innovation will create a more vibrant market for foreign companies to grow in the country, said a top executive of a leading global consumer information company.
Tracey Massey, chief operating officer of Nielsen IQ, said that China is one of the company’s most important strategic markets globally, and “in China, for China” has been the company’s unchanging strategy since it entered into the Chinese market 40 years ago.
“China’s commitment to high-quality development will provide more opportunities for the companies in the country. The Chinese path to modernization means a higher level of openness, more competitive innovation, a more dynamic market and more sustainable development,” Massey said.
“As the economy grows and reforms take hold, consumer behavior will continue to evolve. Meanwhile, economic reforms will also create a more vibrant market for consumer goods and services,” she added.
Services Seen as Bright Spot for Economy:
Amid the sustained recovery in consumer spending, China has employed an array of policy measures to foster greater openness within the services sector, as the country aims to further boost consumption by improving the provision of more quality services, officials and experts said on Friday.
By expanding well-paced openness in the services sector, where market demand is robust, but quality supply falls short, the world’s second-largest economy seeks to bolster a bright spot in domestic demand and fuel economic growth, they added.
Their comments came after the release of the better-than-expected consumer price index, the main gauge of inflation, by the National Bureau of Statistics on Friday, which signaled a strengthening of consumer confidence and demand as prices rose compared to the previous month, coupled with a widening year-on-year growth rate.
From a month-on-month perspective, the CPI has reversed its decline of 0.2 percent in June to register an increase of 0.5 percent in July, said Dong Lijuan, a statistician with the bureau, adding that the CPI grew 0.5 percent on a year-on-year basis, accelerating by 0.3 percentage point from the previous month’s pace.
China’s Gray Economy Unlocks Potential Amid More Need for Eldercare:
With population aging becoming a common global challenge, there is burgeoning demand for innovative and comprehensive eldercare services, which unleashes growing potential for emerging industries.
With an increasingly graying population, China is expected to ride the trend and unlock rapid development of potential industries in the sector, drawing investment from foreign enterprises.
In 2023, people aged 60 and above in China amounted to 297 million, accounting for 21.1 percent of the total population. Experts have predicted that the number will surpass 400 million around 2035 and should reach 500 million by 2050.
Meanwhile, China’s gray economy now stands at around 7 trillion yuan ($977.8 billion), and is expected to reach around 30 trillion yuan by 2035.
Japan and the European Union have chosen to promote the gray economy when entering an advanced stage of aging, transforming the potential of an aging population structure into driving forces of domestic consumption by focusing on the needs and preferences of seniors.
Experts Urge Solar Adoption:
Energy experts assert that solar energy adoption in Pakistan not only reduces reliance on fossil fuels and lowers energy costs but also enhances access to electricity in remote areas, creates jobs, and supports environmental sustainability, leading to a more resilient energy sector. Discussing government policies and incentives, the experts commend the government’s initiative of incentivizing solar energy through net metering. However, they caution that, as seen in developed countries, relying solely on solar energy can only contribute up to 20% of total grid capacity without negatively affecting grid health. To address this foreseeable issue, they suggest the government should incentivize the use of Li-ion batteries alongside net-metered connections. Managed effectively, these batteries could be used to tackle the capacity payment issues currently plaguing the power industry. Users with batteries could be encouraged to export stored energy at different times based on load requirements, which could allow older power plants, currently kept running for spinning reserves, to be taken offline, thereby reducing capacity payments.
Govt Claims Progress in China Debt Talks:
The government has been able to achieve “positive development” in negotiations with China on debt re-profiling and conversion of power plants into local coal to pave the way for tariff reduction.
Earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrote a letter to the Chinese government, in which he requested for debt re-profiling and giving the country a breathing space in meeting debt obligations.
“We are separately talking with China for debt re-profiling and switching over power plants to local coal,” a source said, adding that there had been positive development in that regard.
Sources revealed that the government was working on a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, the prime minister has formed a task force, which is holding meetings on a daily basis to develop a strategy for reducing the tariff of independent power producers (IPPs).
On the other hand, the government is locked in talks with the Chinese leadership to ensure debt re-profiling and run power plants on coal.
US Retailers Rush Imports:
Retailers are fuelling a summer rush of imports to the United States (US) this year as companies guard against a potential strike by port workers and ongoing shipping disruptions from attacks in the Red Sea ahead of a shortened holiday shopping season.
Container imports and freight rates surged in July, signalling an earlier than usual peak season for an ocean shipping industry that handles about 80% of global trade. July is expected to be the peak for US retailers, which account for about half of that trade, and August is expected to be almost as robust, analysts said.
Companies that import toys, home goods and consumer electronics have brought forward holiday promotions to capture customers who are shopping earlier each season. “Retailers don’t want to be caught back-footed,” said Jonathan Gold, the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Vice President for supply chain and customs policy. Many shippers expedited holiday goods orders, with some putting Christmas items on the water as early as May, said Peter Sand, Chief Analyst at pricing platform Xeneta.