4th National Development Forum Held by NSD
Dec 20-2019
The Forum, held on December 15th, featured an array of activities under the theme “Global Changes and National Development”. While China-US relations remained a focal point, the highlight was the release of the report China 2049 co-written by the NSD and the Brookings Institution.
Prof. Yao Yang, Dean of the NSD, said in his opening speech that the NSD has always been deeply rooted in the research of China’s real-world issues and actively involved in the discussions on China’s practical policies; at the same time, it is committed to academic collaboration with international institutes such as the NBER and the Brookings Institution.
China 2049 – Marching Towards World Economic Power was initiated by Prof. Yao Yang and has taken over a year’s efforts by a joint research team. It delves into how China can build a socialist modern and strong country by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the PRC.
Prof. Huang Yiping, Deputy Dean of the NSD and one of the chief editors of the research project, presented the report at the Forum. China’s growth in the last 40 years is mainly attributed to market-oriented reforms, but its economic policies are not without problems.
China faces three major challenges in the next 30 years: loss of low-cost advantage, accelerating aging, and anti-globalization tendency of many countries. Other hurdles include the environment and carbon emission pressures, pension shortfall, machines’ replacing humans, weakening consumption, among others. Accordingly, the report offers policy advice on eight areas.
The project team believes that barring major policy missteps and global mishaps, China’s GDP per capita is well on way to reach 2/3 that of the US in 2049, though its annual economic growth might taper to 2.7-4.2% at that time.
Also released in the Forum were three indices by the NSD: China Consumer Confidence Index, China Investor Emotion Index, and China Innovation and Startup Index.
