Filenews 3 January 2025
China is "determined" to continue opening up its economy to the world in 2025, the country's top economic planning official said on Friday, as Beijing prepares for potential trade turmoil when U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
The world's second-largest economy is struggling to revive growth after the Covid-19 pandemic and continues to be hit by a debt crisis in the critical housing sector, chronically low consumption and high youth unemployment.
The outlook may get worse after Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20. Officials from China's top planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said that "regardless of how the external environment, which is full of uncertainty, changes, China's determination and actions to open up to the outside world will remain unchanged."
"In the new year we will certainly take many new measures to steadily expand systemic openness and further build a business environment that is purchased, under the rule of law and internationalized," NDRC Deputy Director Xiao Qienhin told a news conference on Friday.
He said China plans to encourage greater foreign investment in "advanced production, modern services, high technology, energy saving and environmental protection."
The Chinese authorities have been clear that they want to reorient the economy around such high-tech innovation sectors, for example in the green energy sector.
The country's installed wind and solar power capacity totalled 1.31 billion kilowatts, accounting for 40.5 percent of total power generation capacity last year, up from 36 percent in 2023.
CNA
