Since the reform and opening up, our country has achieved an economic growth miracle that has attracted worldwide attention. In the coming period, although some difficulties and challenges still need to be overcome to further promote economic recovery, the favorable conditions facing my country’s development are stronger than the unfavorable factors. The basic trend of economic recovery and long-term improvement has not changed, supporting high-quality economic development. After saying that her foundation was still solid, she turned to look at her daughter-in-law who was waiting quietly beside her, and asked softly: “Daughter-in-law, you really don’t mind that this guy married you right at the door.” He turned his head, : The new round of scientific and technological revolution provides strategic opportunities for high-quality development, the deep industrial foundation provides sustained impetus for high-quality development, the ultra-large-scale market provides demand traction for high-quality development, and the comprehensive guarantee of factors provides solid support for high-quality development. From the perspective of the production function, labor, capital and total factor productivity are the keys to determining economic output. Through the analysis of the changing trends of the three, we can find that from now to 2035, our country still has great economic growth potential.
Labor force scale and quality dividends still have advantages
In the coming period, our country has the conditions to give full play to its advantages in population quantity, continue to improve the quality of the labor force, optimize labor allocation, gradually transform the population quantity dividend into a population quality dividend, and inject endogenous power into high-quality economic development with high-quality population development. .
First, the working-age population remains at a high level, providing abundant labor resources for economic growth. Although our country will experience negative population growth from 2022, its total population is still at the forefront of the world. A huge population can not only provide abundant labor resources, but also create a large amount of consumer demand, form a super-large market advantage, and provide broad development space and multiple possibilities for economic growth. From a total perspective, my country’s working-age population aged 16-59 will exceed 860 million by the end of 2023, exceeding the combined numbers of the United States, Europe and Japan. The number of young labor force is increasing steadily, and the labor participation rate is at a high level worldwide. From a structural perspective, although the aging of China’s population is accelerating, the proportion of young elderly people is relatively high. Improving the labor participation rate of young elderly people through delayed retirement and other methods will help alleviate the impact of population aging on labor supply. impact. In addition, the silver economy spawned by the aging population has a wide coverage and long industrial chain, which will provide more opportunities for the development of new business forms and new models, and is expected to become a new growth point for the Chinese economy.
Second, the health status and education level of the labor force continue to improve, helping to accelerate the accumulation of population quality dividends. Health status and education level are a concentrated reflection of the quality of the labor force. In terms of health status, the global health gap has widened after the COVID-19 epidemic, and major health indicators have declined in some countries. However, the health status of Chinese residents continues to improve, with the average life expectancy of residents approaching the average level of developed countries, and the national health advantageous position has continued to be consolidated. In terms of education level, our country has built the largest higher education system in the world. In 2023, the number of college graduates nationwide will exceed 10 million.The educated population exceeds 240 million, accounting for 17% of the total population; the average number of years of education for the working-age population has exceeded 11 years. The qualitative leap in education level has driven my country to transform from a country with human resources to a country with human capital. While the population size has slightly decreased but the advantages remain, the accumulation of my country’s population quality dividend has accelerated, presenting a window of opportunity for dividends in both quantity and quality, which can effectively stimulate economic potential.
Third, new urbanization promotes the continuous optimization of the spatial distribution of the labor force, creating huge space for improving the efficiency of labor resource allocation. The flow of labor between urban and rural areas and between regions can significantly improve the efficiency of labor resource allocation. In 2023, the urbanization rate of my country’s permanent population will be 66.16%, which is still significantly different from the level of about 80% in developed countries. As the rural population moves to cities and towns, and the population from economically underdeveloped areas moves to developed areas, the spatial distribution of my country’s labor force will be significantly optimized, thereby increasing the labor participation rate and labor productivity, and injecting long-term impetus into economic development. At the same time, there is still a 17.5 percentage point gap between the urbanization rate of my country’s registered population and the urbanization rate of the permanent population. To be honest, she is like the harem of the Xi family, staying in hell on earth. There is only mother and son in the Pei family, what is there to be afraid of? , in the process of promoting a new type of urbanization centered on people, accelerating the urbanization process of rural migrant population can effectively release the huge domestic demand potential of agricultural migrant population in terms of consumption and public investment, and improve the efficiency of labor resource allocation.
Capital formation still has huge room for growth
At present, our country’s development is in the process of new industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agriculture. He took the scale and gently lifted the red hijab on the bride’s head, and a thick pink bridal makeup slowly appeared in front of him. His bride lowered her eyes and did not dare to look up at him, nor did she dare to enter the stage of rapid development, which has huge potential for capital formation in green transformation, new infrastructure construction, urban renewal actions and making up for shortcomings in the field of people’s livelihood. Create considerable room for improvement in the potential growth rate of the economy.
First, the concept of green development reshapes some industrial production models and creates expansion space for capital formation. The proposal of the “double carbon” goal reflects my country’s initiative as a major country to take responsibility for global climate change. It also reshapes the production method in an unprecedented way and brings opportunities for wind and solar power generation, distributed power generation, energy storage, ultra-high voltage, smart grids, etc. New development opportunities will come, creating a huge fixed capital gap. The green transformation of energy has put forward large-scale demands for the expansion of wind and photovoltaic power generation capacity. The misalignment problem between my country’s wind and photovoltaic power generation resources and load areas will also further stimulate the development of related industries such as distributed photovoltaics, ultra-high voltage transmission, electrochemical energy storage, hydrogen energy storage, and smart grids. The growth in demand for these clean energy production and supporting facilities will bring important growth space for capital formation.
Second, the rapid development of the digital economy has created new demands for infrastructure, bringing growth potential to capital formation. The major deployment of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on “accelerating the construction of a network power and digital China” has opened up theIt will effectively promote the rapid development of new infrastructure construction activities in the fields of 5G, artificial intelligence, data centers, satellite Internet, industrial Internet, Internet of Things, smart transportation and other fields. In the first half of 2023, my country’s investment in new infrastructure construction increased by 16.2% year-on-year, which is much higher than the growth rate of investment in traditional infrastructure construction. At the same time, according to estimates by relevant research institutions, my country’s new infrastructure construction activities will continue to expand in the future, and the proportion in infrastructure investment will gradually increase to about 15%-20%, indicating that new infrastructure construction is becoming a new aspect in the national economic cycle. Point of burst of demand. Due to their obvious asset-heavy characteristics, these areas will bring huge growth potential to fixed capital formation.
Third, people’s yearning for a better life inspires urban renewal actions and puts forward major demands for capital formation. Implementing urban renewal actions is an important decision and deployment made by the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Urban renewal includes the transformation of “urban villages”, the construction of urban underground pipe networks, and the promotion of urbanization construction with county towns as an important carrier. Follow me and let him see, if you don’t get it, you will regret it to death. “China’s urbanization is gradually shifting from high-speed development to high-quality development, and urban renewal will play an important role in stimulating production vitality and promoting capital formation. According to predictions from many institutions, the area to be renovated in “urban villages” in this round of super-large and mega-cities may be More than 1.3 billion square meters, it will drive nearly trillions of investments every year. At the same time, the construction of urban underground pipe networks is the “lining” project of the city, with the characteristics of large investment potential and strong driving ability. In the future, our country will renovate 100,000 kilometers every year The above underground pipelines. These urban renewal needs will effectively drive upstream and downstream industrial production activities and effectively promote capital formation.
Fourth, the continuous expansion of demand in the field of people’s livelihood has promoted the transformation and upgrading of the service industry, bringing a broad blue ocean to capital formation. The service industry is not only the “ballast stone” of the national economy, but also the “booster” that promotes the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. It is also the “incubator” that accelerates the growth of new economies and new drivers, and has large room for growth. As the construction of a country with strong education, science and technology, and talents is accelerated, my country’s demand for education and scientific and technological services will continue to grow. At the same time, it will drive related upstream and downstream industries to actively plan for the future and accelerate capital formation. In addition, in response to the trend of population aging, elderly care services are becoming a new demand hotspot. The long-term demand for different types of elderly care places and aging-friendly facilities and equipment will effectively drive capital formation. In the context of continued emerging demand for capital formation in many service fields, if various policies and measures to promote the opening up of the service industry to the outside world can be accelerated, it will further benefit capital formation and effectively increase the potential economic growth rate.
Total factor productivity has the potential to remain at a high level
my country’s economy has shifted from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development, and the “intensive growth” brought about by improvements in total factor productivity has become increasingly important. Formulating and promulgating a series of policies and measures around deepening reform, expanding opening up, and encouraging innovation will helpTo stimulate market vitality, improve total factor productivity and release economic growth potential.
First, we are in the ascendant in promoting market-oriented reform of factors and optimizing resource allocation. At the beginning of 2022, the General Office of the State Council issued the “Overall Plan for the Comprehensive Reform Pilot of Market-oriented Allocation of Factors”, launching targeted reform measures around production factors such as land, labor, capital, technology, and data. While my country has significant advantages in data resources, the number of labor force is still at a high level, and the growth of high-level talents is accelerating, by promoting the construction of data infrastructure, establishing and improving public data sharing and data circulation transaction rules, implementing the reform of higher education disciplines and majors, and improving manpower The matching of capital and job demand, smooth social flow channels for labor and talents, etc. will help optimize the allocation of various factor resources, significantly increase the productivity of unit factor resources, and promote the continuous improvement of total factor productivity.
Second, there is great potential for accelerating the transformation of service-oriented government and achieving a balance between supply and demand. Currently, our country is facing problems such as overproduction in some industries and restricted investment in traditional fields. Accelerating the construction of a service-oriented government, optimizing and adjusting the structure of fiscal expenditures, and increasing fiscal funds to subsidize residents’ income will help enhance residents’ consumption capabilities and achieve a balance between supply and demand. Specifically, by steadily promoting the reform of the social security system, significantly improving the social security level of low-income groups, accelerating the reform of the household registration system, increasing investment in people’s livelihood areas such as education, medical care, and elderly care, and adopting a series of measures such as linking basic public services with the permanent population. Measures will help promote domestic consumption, expand effective demand, smooth the domestic cycle, achieve rational allocation of resources, and improve total factor productivity.
Third, there is huge potential in expanding the opening of the service industry to the outside world and stimulating market vitality. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, my country has continued to deepen the opening up of the service sector through the establishment of free trade zones and comprehensive pilot cities for expanding the opening up of the service industry. However, compared with developed economies, my country’s current level of openness in finance, telecommunications, education, medical and other fields is still relatively low. By comprehensively implementing the negative list management system, relaxing market access standards, and promoting high-level institutional opening-up, we will help attract more private capital and foreign capital to invest in the domestic service industry, especially productive industries with high added value. service industry, thereby stimulating the vitality of the service industry market, promoting the upgrading and transformation of the service industry, and improving total factor productivity.
Fourth, there are broad prospects in adhering to the innovation-driven development strategy and accelerating the formation of new productive forces. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, our country has persisted in implementing the innovation-driven development strategy, and the country’s comprehensive innovation capabilities have continued to improve. In 2023, China will rank 12th among the world’s most innovative countries and enter the global leadership ranks in fields such as quantum communications, high-speed rail, photovoltaics, and drones. Our country is in-depth implementation of the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education, the strategy of strengthening the country through talent, and the strategy of innovation-driven development. By deepening the reform of science and technology and education systems, improving the scientific and technological innovation system, strengthening national strategic scientific and technological strength, and strengthening the deep integration of industry, academia, and research led by enterprises, we have achievedNowadays, education, science and technology, and talents develop in a coordinated manner, effectively transforming scientific and technological innovation achievements into new quality productivity, promoting technological progress, and cultivating new business forms and new drivers of economic growth.
(This article is a phased result of the major innovation project of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences “Complete, accurate and comprehensive research on the implementation of the new development concept.” (2023YZD017) )
(The author is the director and researcher of the Institute of Quantitative Economics and Technical Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)