Stable economic growth needs consumption

China is striving to cross the threshold of high-income countries. Thus, this year's Government Work Report set a GDP growth target of around 5 percent and prioritized stimulating consumption as its primary policy focus for 2025. This economic blueprint, reflecting China's aspirations, requires sustaining medium-rate growth alongside efforts to ensure the nominal growth rate outpaces the real growth rate.

China should pivot its economic growth model from investment and export reliance to innovation and domestic consumption-driven, to achieve the 5 percent annual growth target outlined in this year's Government Work Report. This shift may face headwinds from structural deviation of consumption, yet successful reforms would bring more support to the stable and medium-rate growth of China's economy.

In the past two years, the economic recovery process after the pandemic has shown an overall upward trend in China, but still faces the pressure of insufficient demand, which is not a lack of investment, but a lack of consumption.