On February 28, the National Bureau of Statistics released the statistical bulletin for 2019. According to preliminary calculations, China's GDP in 2019 will be 998.6 trillion yuan, which will reach US $ 14.4 trillion at an annual average exchange rate, ranking second in the world. This hard-won transcript is not only the summary of China's hard work in the past year, but also the confidence that China will overcome all difficulties and challenges in the new year.
In 2019, under the influence of unfavorable factors such as the "three-phase superposition", constant international trade frictions, and geopolitical tensions, the Chinese economy is facing tremendous downward pressure. Even so, China's economy has maintained an economic growth rate of 6.1%, achieving the expected growth target for the whole year, which is significantly higher than the global economic growth rate, ranking first among economies with a total economic volume of more than US $ 1 trillion. It shows the strong resilience and huge economic potential of the Chinese economy.
In 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic will emerge suddenly. Under the national action of "reducing personnel gathering and avoiding cross-infection", cultural tourism catering business was suspended, factories and enterprises delayed production and resumed work, and China's economy and society suffered a great impact. However, China's economy and society did not stop because of the epidemic situation. Instead, it relied on its strong economic strength accumulated over a long period of time, responded quickly, took extraordinary measures to prevent the spread of the epidemic, and launched a counterattack against the raging virus.
In the fight against the epidemic, the supply of agricultural and sideline products such as public vegetables, grains and oils has never been interrupted; China has quickly organized the production of materials, and many companies have converted medical supplies "cross-border" to fully protect the supply of protective materials; Quickly built in a few short days ... This aspect cannot be separated from China's powerful national strength. With an economic aggregate of nearly 100 trillion yuan, measures such as reducing or exempting patients with new coronary pneumonia are more confident. In 2019, China's total grain output was 666.84 million tons, a record high. Only China National Grain Storage Hubei Branch's grain storage can meet the needs of more than 60 million people in Hubei for more than half a year. The world's most complete industrial system promotes the rapid operation of Chinese enterprises and guarantees continuous production materials in all aspects. The postal industry, which has a total business volume of 1,623 billion yuan in 2019, has escorted life and protective supplies. And the world's leading 5G, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies are showing their skills, becoming an important player in the war of science and technology.
Now, after hard work, the situation of China's epidemic prevention and control is positively expanding, and all parts of the country are stepping up to resume production and work in an orderly manner. The large Chinese market with a per capita GDP of more than 10,000 US dollars will once again play a strong engine role to support enterprises to restore production capacity; the superior environment ranked 14th in the global innovation index will further stimulate social innovation vitality; fiscal revenue exceeding 19 trillion in 2019, exceeding The 3 trillion US dollars of national foreign exchange reserves allow China to have adequate policy control measures to play a "combination boxing" to promote orderly resumption of work and production. On February 25, the executive meeting of the State Council proposed to increase the refinancing and re-discount quota by 500 billion yuan, focusing on small and medium-sized banks to increase credit support for small, medium and micro enterprises. At the same time, the interest rate for agricultural and small refinancing loans was reduced by 0.25 percentage points to 2.5%. Policy banks will increase 350 billion yuan of special credit lines and issue preferential interest rates to private, small, medium and micro enterprises. The promulgation of these policies will effectively alleviate the operating pressure of enterprises and promote China to restore normal economic and social order as soon as possible.
At present, the epidemic prevention and control is still in the most strenuous stage. However, we have reasons to believe that with the concerted efforts of all the Chinese people and strong financial support, China will be able to overcome the epidemic and achieve the 2020 economic and social development goals. (Overseas commentator Meng Qingchuan)