China ‘determined’ to open up economy

BEIJING (AFP) — China is “determined” to continue opening up its economy to the world in 2025, a top economic planning official said Friday, as Beijing steels itself for potential trade turmoil when United States (US) President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The world’s second-largest economy has struggled to revive growth following the Covid-19 pandemic and remains beset by a debt crisis in the crucial housing sector, chronically low consumption and high youth unemployment.

Prospects may darken further after Trump’s inauguration on 20 January — the mercurial US leader hiked tariffs on Chinese imports during a wide-ranging trade war in his first term in office, and has promised more of the same.

But on Friday, officials from China’s top planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said that “no matter how the external environment changes, full of uncertainty, 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 marketized, under rule of law, and internationalized,” NDRC deputy director Zhao Chenxin said at a press conference on Friday.

He said China plans to encourage greater foreign investment in “advanced manufacturing, modern services, high-tech, energy saving and environmental protection.”

Authorities have been clear they want to reorientate the economy around such areas of high-tech innovation, for example in the green energy sector — leaving behind the double-digit “growth at all costs” of the past.

The country’s installed capacity of wind and solar power reached a combined 1.31 billion kilowatts, accounting for 40.5 percent of total power generation capacity last year — up from 36 percent in 2023, Zhao said Friday.

But some figures hinted at more long-term challenges for the economy, chief among them an aging population.