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Participants attend a reception hosted by Chinese city Tianjin during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025 in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2025. /Xinhua
Editor's note: CGTN's First Voice provides instant commentary on breaking stories. The column clarifies emerging issues and better defines the news agenda, offering a Chinese perspective on the latest global events.
As the global economy, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), is poised for another year of uncertainty, the prospects of the Chinese economy are high on the WEF's agenda in Davos, Switzerland, this week.
"The Chinese economy is hugely important and continues to be important," Mina Al-Oraibi, the editor in chief of The National, told CGTN at Davos, adding that the world economy needs China to be steady and to grow.
Measured by market size and growth rate, China is a land of opportunities for many WEF observers. In 2024, China's GDP grew by 5 percent year on year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. China is also one of the markets in the world with large purchasing power, as the World Trade Organization noted.
Undeniably, there exist some challenges. As Zhu Min, member of the senior expert Advisory Committee under China Center for International Economic Exchanges put it at Davos, the previous engines of China's growth – infrastructure, export and real estate – are thought to have slowed down, and the country is looking for new growth engines such as domestic consumption, manufacturing and green transformation.
As Zhu stressed at the WEF, manufacturing is the "key competitiveness of China's economy." The country's manufacturing industry maintained its top position in the world in terms of overall scale in 2024, the 15th consecutive year it has done so, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
"China is the manufacturing house of the world. We have to stay in good cooperation because China is a supplier to a lot of markets," Michael Suss, executive chairman of Oerlikon, a global technology group, said in an exclusive interview with CGTN. "If China is not producing, these markets have an issue because the goods are not coming."
"In the next 20 years, we will make sure made-in-China means cheap, good and high technology," Zhu said at Davos.
A smart assembly line at new energy vehicle maker Seres Group's super factory in Liangjiang New Area, Chongqing, southwest China, June 7, 2024. /Xinhua
Domestic consumption is another engine of China's economic growth. "Consumers are driving manufacturing, manufacturing is driving jobs, and jobs are creating new salaries," Suss told CGTN.
"The drivers of Chinese growth – infrastructure, foreign trade and even real estate – are a little bit weaker these days, but China can foster mass consumption. This is something we have seen in some countries … So I see domestic demand as a driver of growth in the next few months," Fernando Honorato Barbosa, chief economist at Brazilian Banco Bradesco, told CGTN in an exclusive interview, adding that China's real estate market as a driver of growth "is being replaced by growing domestic consumption of goods and the mass consumption of services."
Green transformation, as observers discussed at the WEF, is the third engine for China's economic growth. As Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said at the WEF, China has built the world's largest and most complete new energy industrial chain.
Both the Chinese government and enterprises have been making progress on green transformation. China National Petroleum Corporation President Hou Qijun, while acknowledging the sense of crisis for an oil company like his, pledged a three-step strategy to adapt to the new situation – substituting traditional energy with clean energy, fostering new energy, and facilitating green transformation.
Despite the "China collapse" hyped by some certain Western media outlets, most WEF observers are bullish on the Chinese economy in the medium and long term. As the world becomes increasingly fragmented, the importance of China's role in global economic growth has turned out to be a global consensus.
(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on X, formerly Twitter, to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)