China charts course for modernized economy

BEIJING — After decades of rapid growth, China is shifting its economic focus to high-quality development, with "developing a modernized economy" high on the agenda. Now an economic catchphrase, the idea provides a blueprint for the world's second-largest economy during the next five years and beyond.

It will be embodied in innovation-driven industries with coordinated development, an open and fair market, efficient and fair income distribution, coordinated urban-rural and regional development, energy conservation and environmental friendliness, and an open economy with higher standards.

Efforts will be made to give full play to the role of the market, while the government is expected to play a bigger part. The real economy, once outshone by rampant real estate prices and financial speculation, has again gained traction.

While presiding over a group study of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping described the real economy as the foundation of the modernized economy, advocating the use of new technology, including the internet, big data and artificial intelligence, to boost traditional industries.

To develop a modernized economy, China should channel more energy into improving the quality of supply and grow into a manufacturing powerhouse, said Wang Yiming, deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council. The government has rolled out an array of measures such as Made in China 2025 and Internet Plus strategies.

Funds that used to flow into the virtual economy due to high yields are returning to factories that produce tangible goods. New loans in the real economy rose 11.34 percent to 13.84 trillion yuan ($2.19 trillion) last year.