Experts are putting a premium on multiplying value of talent dividends in catalyzing China's high-quality development, which requires multi-pronged prodigies and genius with specific professions or versatile skills. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday called for efforts to accelerate the building of a modern industrial system underpinned by the real economy and advance Chinese modernization with support from the high-quality development of the population. 

He said that population development is a vital issue related to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and efforts must be made to improve the overall population quality to support Chinese modernization.

China has seen enlarging demographic quality dividend for sustaining economic growth with multiplied cultivation of interdisciplinary talents for catalyzing high-quality development, Guan Qingyou, president of the Rushi Institute of Advanced Finance, told China Media Group during a recent interview. 

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's overall population on the mainland reached approximately 1.41 billion at the end of 2022, a drop of 850,000 from the end of 2021. It is the first time the country's population has registered negative growth since 1962. 

Guan said that China has not lost its notable strength in ample human resources, and the higher quality of labor force has been taking the helm. 

"From the level of economic and industrial development, the demographic dividend is divided into quantity and quality, and the transition is a long-term progress that's gradual and slow," he said. 

China's economic growth relies on its fast rate of productivity and high level of investment, and a slight drop in its population will not cause problems for the country's economic development, said John Ross, senior fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China, during an interview with CGTN. 

Ross, also the former director of economic and business policy for the mayor of London, believes that population and labor force only accounts for a very small proportion of China's economic growth. 

"The stupid myth, which is written (by) some of the Western press, is now China is going to have big problems because of its population, in which population actually going down a little bit," he said, adding that a small proportion of China's economic growth is due to population. 

"Almost nothing in China's growth is due to the increase in labor force. It's fundamentally driven by two factors. One is the very fast rate of growth and productivity, and the second is the very high level of investment, and labor contributes almost nothing," Ross said. 

"We have been attaching great importance to building strong educational system and greater scientific and technological strength since the very beginning," Guan said. 

According to data from China's Ministry of Education, the average number of years of education is continuing to rise among its 900 million working-age population. The figure has contributed to China's shift towards a talent dividend workforce. 

More than 240 million people have received higher education in China and more than 46 million students were at higher-education institutions in 2022, that's 2.25 million more than the year before. The enrollment rate of higher education was 59.6 percent in 2022, while the rate was only 30 percent 10 years ago, said the ministry. 

"In fact, we are now emerging as a country with a demographic quality dividend," Guan said.