(Source: "China Economic Weekly" 2025-06-17)
On May 30, Beilun Port Station of Ningbo-Zhoushan Port Railway was a busy scene. Container trucks carrying Yiwu daily necessities, clothing, photovoltaic modules and other goods shuttled back and forth, queuing up in an orderly manner waiting for unloading operations.
As the first train of Ningbo Zhoushan Port's sea-rail combined transport, the "Yiwu-Ningbo Zhoushan Port" container sea-rail combined transport line was officially opened in February 2009, and has continuously transported goods from Yiwu, the "world's factory", to the port.
As the domestic macro-circulation strategy accelerates, the demand for regional economic linkage continues to be released, and Ningbo Zhoushan Port’s contribution to the port hinterland is also expanding. In the past, the traditional port hinterland was within 300 kilometers, and the service area was limited to the province or surrounding neighboring provinces. After the opening of sea-rail combined transport, the port's hinterland expanded to inland areas such as Xi'an and Chongqing and the Alashankou Port in Xinjiang. Goods from these areas can be directly transported to the port area by railway. Currently, Ningbo Zhoushan Port’s sea-rail combined transport business has radiated to 67 prefecture-level cities in 16 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country.
On May 15, the State Council held a meeting to promote the work of strengthening the domestic macrocycle, emphasizing that the strategic foothold of development must be on strengthening the domestic macrocycle, using the inherent stability and long-term growth of the domestic macrocycle to offset the uncertainty of the international cycle, promoting the stability and long-term development of our country's economy, and striving to achieve high-quality development.
In the current context of continued fluctuations in the global supply chain and unstable external demand, giving full play to the unique advantages of my country's ultra-large-scale market with a population of 1.4 billion and strengthening the domestic cycle can not only effectively hedge the uncertainty of the external environment, but also open up new development space for economic transformation and upgrading.
Ningbo Zhoushan Port sea-rail combined operation
Hedging the uncertainty of international circulation
Wang Li, general manager of Shenzhen Maiqijia Home Furnishing Co., Ltd., still remembers the difficulties the company faced when the epidemic broke out in 2020.
"I was really anxious at the time. We originally mainly relied on traditional models such as offline exhibitions and customer visits to carry out business, but the epidemic made it difficult to maintain these methods. In order to cope with the difficulties, we had to transform to online channels." Wang Li told this reporter that considering that the company mainly focuses on export business, they first opened the Alibaba International Station; at the same time, in order to expand the domestic market, they also entered the Alibaba domestic platform.
When the COVID-19 epidemic broke out in early 2020, various countries successively adopted measures such as border blockades and shutdowns of work and production. my country's foreign w88 suffered heavy losses. Data released by the General Administration of Customs show that my country’s exports of goods w88 fell by 11.4% in the first quarter of 2020.
In this context, the Standing Committee meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held on May 14, 2020 reviewed the situation and clearly proposed the major strategic deployment of "giving full play to my country's ultra-large market advantages and domestic demand potential, and building a new development pattern in which domestic and international dual cycles promote each other."
“At that time, firstly, the epidemic caused the global supply chain to be interrupted, and secondly, the U.S. technological blockade intensified. These two factors together caused great uncertainty in the external demand market.” Zhao Zhongxiu, president of the w88 casino, analyzed in an interview with this reporter.
Faced with the uncertainty of the external demand market, in the past five years, China has built new development momentum by activating the potential of domestic demand, giving full play to the unique advantages of a large country economy dominated by domestic demand and internally recycling.
"The first is the advantage of a very large market. Our country has a consumer market of 1.4 billion people. In 2020, the scale of online retail sales reached 11.8 trillion yuan, ranking first in the world and showing strong domestic demand potential. Secondly, there is the support of a complete industrial system. As the country with the most complete industrial system in the world, my country has formed a complete industrial pattern of 41 major industrial categories and 666 industrial sub-categories, and is the only country with all industrial categories in the United Nations industrial classification. These structural advantages show that through forward-looking strategic planning, our country has laid a solid foundation for building a new development pattern with domestic circulation as the main body." Zhao Zhongxiu said.
Recently, the international situation has undergone sudden changes. In April 2025, the United States imposed new pressure on China's exports by imposing arbitrary tariffs. This further highlights the strategic significance of China's accelerating the construction of a new development pattern of "domestic circulation as the main body and domestic and international dual circulations mutually reinforcing each other".
On May 15, the State Council held a meeting to promote the work of strengthening the domestic cycle. Convening this meeting now is undoubtedly of special significance.
Huang Qunhui, a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed to our reporter that the current emphasis on strengthening the domestic cycle is mainly based on the high uncertainty of the external environment. It is our strategic choice to respond to external risks by strengthening the stability and certainty of the domestic economy.
"While adhering to the mutual promotion of the dual cycles, we must highlight the dominant position of the domestic cycle and rely on its robustness and sustainability to protect the Chinese economy." Huang Qunhui said.
“Four aspects” promote the quality improvement of domestic large-scale circulation
On May 15, the State Council held a meeting to promote the work of strengthening the domestic general cycle, and clearly stated that there are four key tasks in strengthening the domestic general cycle.
Feng Qiaobin, deputy director of the Macroeconomic Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, metaphorically said to our reporter: "Each of these four aspects is crucial to the healthy operation of the economy."
Specifically, the first is the efficient allocation of resource elements. The core of building a unified national market is to break local protectionism, eliminate market barriers, and realize the free flow and efficient allocation of production factors such as goods, services, capital, and talents across the country.
The second is the deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation. It is emphasized that scientific and technological innovation must break through the limitations of the laboratory and accelerate its transformation into actual productivity and market value; at the same time, industrial upgrading must actively connect with new technologies and enhance core competitiveness through technological innovation.
The third is the independent and complete industrial chain and supply chain. The goal of improving the industrial chain and supply chain system is to build an independent, controllable, safe and reliable industrial ecology, ensure an unimpeded domestic economic cycle, and enhance economic resilience and risk resistance.
The fourth is the dynamic balance of supply and demand. The key to achieving a dynamic balance between supply and demand is to establish a market mechanism for precise docking, so that the supply side can respond to changes in demand in a timely manner and avoid the coexistence of overcapacity and undersupply.
"These four aspects are intertwined and together constitute the core support system of the domestic cycle. Doing these tasks well will help lay a solid foundation for high-quality economic development." Feng Qiaobin said.
Huang Qunhui believes that the reason why the domestic macrocirculation construction focuses on these four aspects is precisely because these aspects are not only the current bottlenecks in economic development, but also deep-seated problems that urgently need to be broken through.
From the perspective of institutional mechanisms, the obstruction of the flow of production factors between regions is a prominent contradiction. "In order to pursue local economic growth, some places have artificially set up market barriers, making it difficult for goods, capital, talents and other factors to flow freely across regions, which seriously restricts the maximization of resource allocation efficiency," Huang Qunhui said.
From an innovation-driven analysis, insufficient original technological innovation constitutes an important bottleneck. "Although the market demand is clear, the supply of key core technologies is still limited due to institutional problems such as weak basic research and poor transformation mechanisms." Huang Qunhui said.
“These four aspects are intrinsically logically related: the construction of a unified large market solves the problem of ‘poor circulation’, the integration of science and technology industries solves the dilemma of ‘insufficient innovation’, the improvement of the industrial chain and supply chain ensures ‘circulation security’, and the dynamic balance of supply and demand achieves ‘circulation quality’. Among them, innovation drive is the fundamental driving force, and the market-oriented reform of factors is the institutional foundation. The two together constitute the two-wheel drive for high-quality development of the domestic macro-circulation.” Huang Qunhui understands this.
Zhao Zhongxiu talked about the importance of these four aspects from the perspective of strategic improvement.
He believes that the current emphasis on strengthening the domestic cycle marks the deepening and upgrading of this strategy. It is to promote the economic cycle from scale expansion to "good or bad" quality under the framework of developing new quality productivity.
"Although we also rely on the advantages of the ultra-large-scale domestic demand market, strengthening the current domestic cycle has a new era connotation. We must not only expand the market scale, but also improve the quality of supply through innovation, create new demand with high-quality supply, and achieve a dynamic balance of supply and demand at a higher level. This is the essential requirement for high-quality economic development." Zhao Zhongxiu said.
In view of the increasingly important strategic position of the domestic macrocycle at this stage, the interviewed experts generally believe that strengthening the domestic macrocycle requires relying on supply-side innovation and demand-side expansion to form a "dual drive". At the same time, it is necessary to promote efficient connectivity between the domestic market and the international market, and use the domestic cycle to better lead the international cycle.
Hubei Humanoid Robot Innovation Center in Wuhan Optics Valley Digital Economic Industrial Park
Visitors watching the brain-computer interface technology product display
BYD New Energy Vehicle Science Popularization Center Space
Supply side: Break through innovation and improve quality and capabilities
In the context of accelerating the construction of a new development pattern, my country is taking innovation as an important driving force for supply-side structural reform.
Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2024, my country’s total social research and experimental development (R&D) funding investment will be 3.613 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.3%. The continued increase in investment in innovation lays the foundation for high-quality economic development.
From a practical perspective, various localities and departments are taking multiple measures to promote original innovation and the construction of innovation centers.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" and the outline of long-term goals for 2035 clearly state that "support Beijing, Shanghai, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to form international science and technology innovation centers." Places such as Beijing and Shanghai, which have concentrated national strategic scientific and technological forces and are rich in scientific and educational resources, have actively implemented central policies and taken advantage of the concentrated national strategic scientific and technological forces and rich scientific and educational resources to accelerate the creation of original innovation centers.
For example, Beijing’s 2025 government work report proposes to strengthen the source function of scientific and technological innovation, “strengthen original and leading scientific and technological research, build a central-regional collaborative innovation system led by national laboratories, and vigorously promote nine major special research actions such as integrated circuits and biomedicine.”
Shanghai’s 2025 Government Work Report emphasizes enhancing scientific and technological innovation capabilities and “strengthening forward-looking, strategic, systematic, and stimulating research layout around strategic frontier areas such as cell gene therapy, brain-computer interface, 6G, quantum computing, and fusion energy.”
In addition, the dominant position of enterprises in innovation continues to increase. At present, the total number of high-tech enterprises in my country reaches 463,000, and the number of industrial high-tech enterprises above designated size reaches 169,000. A total of more than 140,000 specialized, special and new small and medium-sized enterprises have been cultivated. Leading companies represented by Huawei and BYD have achieved technological breakthroughs in 5G communications, new energy vehicles and other fields, driving the upgrading of related industries.
"Current scientific and technological innovation presents three new characteristics: first, the transformation from imitation to original leadership, second, from single-point breakthrough to systematic innovation and upgrade, and third, accelerated expansion from technological development to industrial application. These changes will significantly improve the quality and capacity of effective technology supply and provide sustained impetus for China's innovative development." Mu Rongping, director of the National Integrated Innovation Research Center at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, told this reporter.
With the in-depth implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, our country is accelerating the cultivation of new productive forces and promoting the economy to achieve effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth. Despite this, there is still a "stuck" problem where key core technologies are restricted by others.
In Mu Rongping’s view, the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy requires three key points: First, anchor the main direction of scientific and technological innovation, continue to increase investment in cutting-edge technology research and development, not only focus on breaking through the bottlenecks of key core technologies, but also focus on opening up new areas of future technology research and development The second is to strengthen the main position of enterprises in scientific and technological innovation, cultivate future industries and strategic emerging industries led by technological revolution, and increase the demand for effective technology; the third is to deepen the reform of scientific and technological systems and mechanisms, strengthen the systematic coupling between high-level technology supply and demand, and build an innovative development ecosystem.
Demand side: tap consumption potential and promote a virtuous cycle
From high-standard farmland construction and energy-saving and carbon-reducing transformation in key areas, to the renovation of urban sewage pipe networks and the start of major projects such as high-speed rail along the river; from the rapid growth in sales of consumer goods such as automobiles and home appliances, to the acceleration of enterprise automation and intelligent transformation and upgrading... Since my country has vigorously implemented the "double" and "two new" policies in 2024, it has stimulated domestic demand potential and effectively stimulated economic growth.
The w88-in policy for consumer goods has obvious effects. Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on May 19 showed that the total retail sales of consumer goods in April was 3,717.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.1% and a month-on-month increase of 0.24%. Among them, the sales of consumer goods w88-in-related products increased significantly, which played a significant role in the growth and support of the total retail sales of consumer goods.
Driven by the expansion of the w88-in of consumer goods, in April, the retail sales of household appliances and audio-visual equipment, cultural and office supplies, furniture, and communication equipment by units above designated size increased by 38.8%, 33.5%, 26.9%, and 19.9% respectively year-on-year, all significantly faster than the growth rate of commodity retail sales.
“Vigorously boosting consumption is conducive to effectively responding to external challenges, smoothing the domestic cycle, and promoting economic development. It is also conducive to improving people’s livelihood and enhancing development vitality.” Fu Linghui, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics and director of the National Economic Comprehensive Statistics Department, said at a press conference of the State Council Information Office.
However, there are still many difficulties and challenges faced by expanding domestic demand, especially at the level of promoting consumption.
Huang Qunhui deeply analyzed the internal logic of expanding domestic demand: "When discussing the relationship between investment and consumption, we often ignore the two key transmission variables of employment and income distribution. In fact, this is a complete circular chain: investment creates employment opportunities, employment brings income growth, and income level directly determines consumption capacity, and consumer demand will guide new investment directions."
Huang Qunhui emphasized that my country’s current consumption rate is about 20 percentage points lower than that of developed countries, and insufficient consumption has become a prominent shortcoming in economic development. The current policy focus is on boosting consumption, which is a practical necessity, but this does not negate the importance of investment.
“What we are focusing on is ‘effective investment’. This type of investment has a dual effect: it can not only directly stimulate employment growth and increase residents’ income, but also create basic conditions for consumption expansion and upgrading, and ultimately achieve a positive interaction between investment and consumption.” Huang Qunhui said.
Feng Qiaobin believes that one of the current bottlenecks restricting the high-quality development of the domestic macrocycle is insufficient consumer demand. "The lower willingness of residents to consume has directly inhibited the release of endogenous kinetic energy in the economy."
“The fundamental way to solve this problem lies in converting more economic development results into residents’ disposable income.” Feng Qiaobin suggested that reforms in three aspects can be promoted:
Firstly, deepen the reform of the income distribution system and increase the proportion of labor remuneration in primary distribution; secondly, improve the redistribution adjustment mechanism and expand the size of the middle-income group; thirdly, improve the social security system and reduce residents’ need for precautionary savings.
“Income distribution reform is a systematic project that requires continuous institutional innovation and policy coordination to ultimately achieve a virtuous cycle of residents’ income and economic growth. Only when the people’s money bags are truly bulging, can the ‘carriage’ of consumption become a powerful engine driving the internal circulation.” Feng Qiaobin said.
Active transformation towards “domestic demand-driven + global collaboration”
In response to the recent argument on the Internet that "domestic circulation is equivalent to closing the country off", Zhao Zhongxiu clearly refuted it: "Misinterpreting 'domestic circulation as the main body' as 'engaging in construction behind closed doors'. This misunderstanding of binary opposition is not only a misunderstanding of the central government's policies, but also a deviation from the laws of economic development."
Zhao Zhongxiu analyzed that as a responsible major country, China is achieving a higher level of integration with the international market by improving the quality of its domestic economic cycle. "Open development is not a multiple-choice question, but a must-answer question in the new era. Just like building a modern house, we must not only lay a solid foundation (domestic circulation), but also open doors and windows (international circulation). Only in this way can we maintain development vitality while resisting external risks."
For more than 40 years of opening up to the outside world, international circulation has provided important support for the high-quality development of China's economy. As the world's second largest economy, China has achieved a historic leap in economic strength through its in-depth participation in the international division of labor and cooperation.
Judging from the total foreign w88 volume, foreign w88 has become an important engine for my country’s economic growth. In 2024, my country's foreign w88 will exceed the 43 trillion yuan mark for the first time, a year-on-year increase of 5%, maintaining its status as the largest country in goods w88 for the eighth consecutive year. Industrial clusters in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other regions have cultivated a large number of internationally competitive manufacturing companies by integrating into global value chains.
From the perspective of industrial transformation and upgrading, international circulation promotes industrial transformation and upgrading. Through introduction, digestion, absorption, and re-innovation, my country has achieved a leap from following, to running alongside, to leading in fields such as high-speed rail, nuclear power, and communication equipment. Take new energy vehicles as an example. In 2024, China will export 6.41 million vehicles, of which new energy vehicle exports will exceed 2 million for the first time. Domestic new energy vehicles directly bring China's automobile industry to the international stage.
From an enterprise level, foreign-funded enterprises have injected vitality into the Chinese economy. As of the end of 2024, foreign investors have invested and established more than 1.239 million enterprises in China, with actual use of foreign capital of 20.6 trillion yuan. Foreign-funded enterprises in China contribute nearly 7% of employment, 1/7 of tax revenue, about 1/3 of imports and exports, and 1/2 of exports of mechanical and electrical products and high-tech products. They are not only an important part of the domestic cycle, but also a bridge linking the domestic and international dual cycles.
At the same time, China is also making important contributions to world economic development through open platforms such as the China International Import Expo and the joint construction of the “Belt and Road Initiative”.
Facing the complex and ever-changing international environment, my country has proactively adjusted its development strategy. In 2020, it has proposed "building a new development pattern in which domestic and international dual cycles promote each other". Currently, it also emphasizes "promoting efficient connectivity between the domestic market and the international market, and using the domestic cycle to better drive the international cycle." In Zhao Zhongxiu's view, this is the active transformation of China's economy from "export-oriented" to "domestic demand-driven + global coordination". Behind it is the pressure of drastic changes in the international environment and the inherent requirements of upgrading the domestic development stage.
How to accelerate the construction of a new development pattern with high-level opening up? Zhao Zhongxiu put forward the following three suggestions: "First, build a security system for the industrial chain, second, deepen open cooperation in jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative, and third, build a new higher-level open economic system."
“These three aspects support each other and are organically unified: industrial chain security is the basic support, the joint construction of the ‘Belt and Road’ is an important platform, and institutional openness is the institutional guarantee. By systematically promoting work in these three dimensions, a virtuous cycle of ‘safe and controllable industrial chain + high-quality open cooperation + high-level open system’ can be formed.” Zhao Zhongxiu said.
Attached original text link:https://www.ceweekly.cn/cewsel/2025/0616/475238.html
