At present, there is a surge of enthusiasm for the development of new quality productivity throughout the country. The new productivity originated in China and has benefited the world, injecting strong momentum into the world's second largest economy while igniting a new engine of global development.
New productivity is first and foremost “new”, providing a new driving force for global technological change. Science and technology innovation can give rise to new industries, new modes and new kinetic energy, and is the core element for the development of new productivity.In 2023, China's social research and experimental development (RD) expenditure was 332.78 billion yuan, an increase of 8.1 percent. By the end of 2023, the number of valid invention patents within China's territory reached 4.015 million, with the proportion of high-value invention patents exceeding 40%, making China the first country in the world where the number of valid invention patents within its territory exceeded 4 million. The Global Innovation Index Report 2023 published by the World Intellectual Property Organization shows that China ranks 12th in the world in terms of innovation index, is the world's highest-ranked middle-income economy, and possesses the number of the world's top 100 scientific and technological clusters for the first time jumped to the first place in the world.
China has made new breakthroughs in key core technologies, with a series of major achievements in areas such as manned spaceflight, large aircraft manufacturing, nuclear power technology and quantum information. Recently, the Shenzhou 18 manned spacecraft was successfully launched, and the Chang'e 6 probe was successfully launched and accurately put into orbit, starting mankind's first “treasure-digging” trip to the back of the moon. The manned submersible Striver completed its extreme deep dive, and the C919, a domestically produced large airplane, and the first domestically produced large cruise ship went into commercial operation. The world's first 16-megawatt offshore wind turbine was connected to the grid to generate electricity, and the world's first demonstration project of high-temperature gas-cooled reactor for fourth-generation nuclear power plant was put into commercial operation. China's “Eye in the Sky” detected key evidence of the existence of nanohertz gravitational waves, the “Jiuzhang III” quantum computer once again set a new world record for optical quantum computing, “Zuchongzhi”, The “Zuchongzhi” and “Quartus” quantum computing cloud platforms have been put online.
China has always attached great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights, and has continued to improve the mechanism of international cooperation in intellectual property rights, and has established intellectual property rights cooperation relations with more than 80 countries and regions as well as international organizations. China has put forward the Initiative on International Cooperation in Science and Technology, advocating and practicing the concept of open, fair, just and non-discriminatory international cooperation in science and technology, adhering to the principle that “science has no borders and benefits all mankind”, promoting the mutual benefit of the fruits of scientific and technological innovation, and joining hands to build a global scientific and technological community.
The key to new quality productivity is “quality”, which provides high-quality power and products for the recovery of the world economy. New-quality productivity is the quality of advanced productivity that is characterized by high-technology, high-efficiency and high-quality, in line with the new development concept, with innovation playing a leading role and breaking away from the traditional mode of economic growth and the path of productivity development. In the first quarter of this year, China's GDP grew by 5.3% year-on-year, and while realizing quantitative growth, it is also realizing effective qualitative improvement. The value-added of high-tech manufacturing industries above designated size grew by 7.5% year-on-year, the contribution of domestic demand to economic growth reached 85.5%, and the internal structure of both industries and demand is actively improving. In the first four months of this year, the total value of China's import and export of goods trade amounted to RMB 13.81 trillion, up 5.7% year-on-year, a record high for the same period in history. A number of international financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, have raised their expectations for China's economic growth this year, and IMF Managing Director Georgieva said China's transition from high-speed growth to high-quality development is the right choice of path, and that China will continue to be an important contributor to global economic growth.
By stimulating the vitality of the digital economy, 5G, industrial Internet, artificial intelligence and other new-generation information technologies are empowering traditional industries, and new productivity is further optimizing “Made in China”. China's new energy enterprises in the open competition to practice the real skills, on behalf of the advanced production capacity. 2023, China's electric vehicles, lithium batteries, photovoltaic products, “the new three” exports exceeded one trillion yuan. Recently, the international speculation “China's overcapacity” evil tone, which is completely untenable, but also against the basic laws of economics. This has nothing to do with subsidies, but rather the question of whether the products are good or bad. In the face of cheap goods, in the face of higher technological content, more durable, more able to meet the requirements of high-quality products, rational consumers will, of course, give priority to choose. This is not overcapacity, but rather capacity advantage, and it is the path way to improve the quality of the world economy and enhance the well-being of people's livelihood.
New quality productivity pursues “green” and contributes Chinese power to global environmental governance. Green development is the underpinning of high-quality development, and new quality productivity is itself green productivity. China continues to strengthen the construction of ecological civilization, striving to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, and is striving to build and implement a dual-carbon “1+N” policy system to promote low-carbon development and green transformation.
Nearly half of the world's installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation is in China, more than half of the world's new energy vehicles are running in China, and a quarter of the world's new green area comes from China. China will also form a large-scale development increment in green infrastructure, green energy, green transportation, green life and other areas, which will nurture an investment and consumption market estimated to reach 10 trillion yuan per year, with huge potential.
China has firmly established and practiced the concept that green water and green mountains are golden mountains, and advocated the construction of a community of life between human beings and nature, as well as a community of life on earth. On the international stage of promoting global sustainable development, China firmly practices genuine multilateralism, adheres to the concept of global governance based on common cause and shared responsibility, and strives to promote the construction of a fair, reasonable and win-win global environmental governance system, and has become an important participant, contributor and leader in the construction of a global ecological civilization.
The new quality of productive forces has opened up new paths, contributing Chinese solutions to the modernization of the world. Since the founding of New China, and especially since the reform and opening-up, China has completed in a few decades the industrialization process that western developed countries have gone through in hundreds of years, and has created a miracle of rapid economic development and long-term social stability. Chinese-style modernization is a modernization with a huge population, a modernization of common prosperity for all people, a modernization that harmonizes material and spiritual civilization, a modernization of harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature, and a modernization that follows the path of peaceful development. The unique worldview, values, history, civilization, democracy, ecology and its great practice of Chinese-style modernization are major innovations in the theory and practice of modernization in the world, breaking the myth that modernization equals Westernization and expanding the choices of paths for developing countries to take towards modernization.
The development of new-quality productive forces is an intrinsic requirement and an important focus for promoting high-quality development, which is one of the essential requirements of Chinese-style modernization. New quality productive forces are the contemporary advanced productive forces spawned by revolutionary technological breakthroughs, innovative allocation of production factors, and in-depth transformation and upgrading of industries, which will vigorously promote high-quality development, enable Chinese-style modernization to proceed in a more stable and better manner, and provide new ideas and new references for countries pursuing their own modernization paths in the world.
In the process of developing new productive forces, China is inseparable from the world, and the world needs China. The “new” Chinese economy will ride the wind and waves, adding new vitality and injecting new momentum into global development. Looking to the future, the new productive forces are painting a beautiful picture of a strong recovery of the world economy, high-quality global development and modernization of the world.