"4.5%-5%" – The government work report submitted to the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress for review on the 5th proposed the expected target for China's economic growth this year, while emphasizing "strive to strive for better results in practical work." Overseas people believe that this goal is positive and pragmatic. It not only seeks to stabilize the basic market at a reasonable growth rate, but also reserves flexible space for deepening reforms. In an international situation characterized by intertwined events and intensified regional conflicts, China has injected valuable confidence into the global market with the certainty of its own high-quality development.
Reasonable range demonstrates pragmatic policy orientation
"Setting a growth target of 4.5% to 5% reflects China's policy thinking of promoting effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth of the economy." Raquel Leon de la Rosa, an expert on China issues at the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla, Mexico, said that from formulating five-year plans to setting major expected annual development goals, China has accumulated mature experience, and its economic governance has formed a systematic policy reserve and risk response mechanism, which can maintain economic stability and resilience in the face of changes in the external environment.
Liang Guoyong, a senior economist at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, believes that setting the expected economic growth target as a range demonstrates the pragmatism and flexibility of China's economic policy and increases the room for maneuver in responding to external challenges such as global geopolitical turmoil and disordered international economic governance.
Looking at the overall global situation, China's expected economic growth target has considerable "gold content." The International Monetary Fund predicted in January this year that the world economy will grow by 3.3% in 2026, of which developed economies will grow by 1.8%.
"China's expected economic growth target is higher than the global average and ranks among the best among the world's major economies. It will make an important contribution to the stability and development of the global economy and ensure the smooth operation of the global supply chain." said Selcuk Cholakoglu, director of Türkiye's Asia-Pacific Research Center.
Toronbek Abdrov, an economics expert from Kyrgyzstan, said that currently, with the rise of unilateralism and protectionism and the ongoing geopolitical tensions, China’s expected economic growth targets reflect a positive and pragmatic policy orientation.
Rahma Gafmi, a professor of economics at Airlangga University in Indonesia, believes that looking forward to the entire "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the significance of China's expected economic growth targets "does not lie in the numbers or ranges themselves, but in setting the tone for the next five years of development: on the one hand, creating conditions for reform, transformation and risk resolution through reasonable growth; on the other hand, growth is more clearly based on expanding domestic demand, improving total factor productivity and technological innovation capabilities."
A clear signal towards high-quality development
Overseas people have noticed that China's expected economic growth target is not only a quantitative indicator, but also a "navigation mark" for its development path: by releasing clear policy signals, it guides all parties to focus on high-quality development and promotes the transformation of the economic structure into a new and better one.
"The key signal sent by China this year is a clear grasp of the economic direction – firmly moving towards high-quality development." Sergey Korzhumbayev, editor-in-chief of "Kazakhstan Business News", said that China is promoting the construction of a new technological ecosystem, which will profoundly affect the global economic pattern in the next few decades. "For many countries, including Kazakhstan, this is a historic opportunity to expand technological cooperation with China."
Denis Depp (Chinese name: Dai Pu), co-president of the Roland Berger Global Management Committee of the German management consulting company, believes that the setting of this year's expected growth target is China's proactive choice to promote high-quality economic development and will guide investment to areas such as technological innovation and people's livelihood that better meet development needs.
"Judging from the setting of expected growth targets and the deployment of key tasks, the first year of the '15th Five-Year Plan' puts great emphasis on high-quality development orientation." said Pragong Kachari, an expert on China issues in Thailand and a lecturer at the School of Business Administration of Chiang Mai University. Jia Zaili has been studying China's economic and technological development for a long time, and has deep feelings about the "number in the east and calculate in the west" project. "This is China's vivid practice of 'developing new productive forces according to local conditions' – cultivating high value-added industries in line with future development directions based on the resource endowments of different regions."
The concept and practice of high-quality development are not only reshaping China's economy, but also quietly rewriting the global innovation landscape and green process. Hervé Azoulay, a professor at the Silk Road Business School in France and a former executive of Schneider Electric, pointed out that China is becoming an important incubator of innovation results and an important source of technical standards, opening up broad space for global companies to enter the high-end innovation market, participate in advanced technology cluster cooperation, and integrate into the digital industrial ecosystem.
"China's promotion of high-quality development has brought sharable development dividends to the world." Ismael Buchanan, a senior lecturer at the School of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Rwanda, who has visited China many times, said, "In African countries such as Rwanda, China has more and more new energy vehicles. This has provided great help to African countries in improving the environment and coping with climate change, and African people have benefited a lot."
Play the role of "stabilizer" in the global market
Certainty is particularly scarce in today’s world. Overseas people believe that the economic growth targets set by China play an important role in stabilizing expectations and boosting confidence at the global level, injecting valuable certainty into the world economy.
Azoulay said that in the current complex and ever-changing international environment, China's economy is growing at an appropriate speed, which is of great significance in itself. It will help stabilize commodity demand, manufacturing orders and cross-border investment layout, and provide predictable demand support and policy signals for the international market.
Tafazwa Ruzifer, a researcher and economist at the University of the Free State in South Africa, believes that the predictability of China's development is very valuable in today's world and can provide an important "anchor" for trading partners. "By understanding China's growth goals and development plans, trading partners can adjust their production and investment to match demand."
"China is an important fulcrum for global economic development." Stephen Ndegwa, a Kenyan expert on international issues, said that when the clouds of protectionism and geopolitical conflicts shroud the global economy, China has injected stability and a sense of direction into the chaotic world with the certainty of its own development and its practical actions of openness and cooperation.
(Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 7, reporter Du Jing)
"Guangming Daily" (page 11, March 8, 2026)
