Experts praise country's successes

Experts worldwide have spoken highly of China's progress and expressed hope that the country will make even greater achievements, which will benefit global economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China concluded on Thursday. It adopted the committee's proposals for the formulation of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035.

Mao Xuxin, principal economist at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a London-based economic think tank, said the proposals "set a practical blueprint for China's economic growth and social development in the coming years".

China, Mao said, will speed up the transformation from high-speed growth to high-quality development, with improved economic structure, breakthroughs in core high technology industries and balanced growth across inland and coastal regions.

Koh King Kee, president of the Centre For New Inclusive Asia, a Kuala Lumpur-based think tank, said that the blueprint promotes green and high-quality development while pushing for more balanced growth through rural vitalization, urbanization and coordinated regional development.

"The long-range objectives in fact can be interpreted as quantified targets and visions of China's centennial dreams," he said.

Christine Bierre, editor-in-chief of France's Nouvelle Soli-darite magazine and an expert at the Schiller France Institute, said that China has made remarkable achievements during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period, especially in the areas of poverty alleviation and Belt and Road cooperation, demonstrating the efficiency of China's policy planning.

China's new development proposals pay more attention to the quality and efficiency of economic development with measures in such aspects as scientific and technological innovation, expanding domestic demand, opening up to the outside world and promoting green development, all of which will boost China's prosperity and development and contribute to the global economic recovery in the post-pandemic era, Bierre said.

Nasser Bouchiba, president of the Africa-China Cooperation Association for Development in Morocco, said that China's development path is worth being taken as an example by emerging African countries.

He said that China will step up the building of the new development pattern of "dual circulation" in the next five years, increase internal investments in infrastructure and technological research and development and promote the BRI overseas, which will "undoubtedly become an engine driving the revitalization of the global economy in the post-epidemic era".

Cavince Adhere, a Kenyan international relations researcher with a focus on China-Africa relations, said China's poverty reduction is a monumental contribution to global sustainable development goals.

He also praised China for its ecological revolution, which has placed a premium on the harmony between people and the environment, saying the global best practices so far consolidated by China in its environmental protection and development pairing provide good examples for other nations.

Chen Yingqun and Xinhua contributed to this story.