Global Times: Xi stresses building unified national market, promoting marine economy's high-quality devt

BEIJING, July 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday stressed efforts to advance the building of a unified national market and promote the high-quality development of the marine economy, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at a meeting of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, which he heads.

In his speech at the meeting, Xi emphasized that building a unified national market is essential for creating a new development pattern and promoting high-quality development, urging strengthened coordination and cooperation to build synergy in related work.

Xi stressed that advancing Chinese modernization requires promoting the marine economy's high-quality development and forging a Chinese path of leveraging marine resources to achieve strength.

"As the second half of the year has just begun, China needs to plan for the third and fourth quarters to achieve the annual socioeconomic development goals with high quality. At this time, it is crucial to introduce incremental policies based on the economic performance of the first half, with building unified national market and promoting marine economy's high-quality development in focus," Hu Qimu, deputy secretary-general of the Forum 50 for Digital-Real Economies Integration, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Held amid an unstable external environment, this meeting serves as an action guide. By building unified national market, it fosters endogenous growth momentum; by advancing the high-quality development of the marine economy, it creates new growth poles, enhancing China's resilience in global industrial chains, Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said on Tuesday.

According to Xinhua, it was noted at the meeting that the basic requirement for advancing the building of a unified national market is to unify underlying market institutions, market infrastructure, government conduct, regulatory enforcement, and markets of production factors and resources, while continuously expanding opening up both internally and externally.

Efforts must be made to regulate enterprises' disorderly price competition in accordance with laws and regulations, standardize government procurement as well as tendering and bidding processes, regulate local governments' investment attraction practices, and facilitate sales of export-oriented products at domestic market, Xinhua reported.

Hu said building a unified national market aims to create a favorable marketing environment with standardized regulations, enabling enterprises to allocate market resources across a broader scope. Addressing disorderly low-price competition among enterprises and guiding them to improve product quality can regulate business practices, while encouraging firms to drive development through innovation and upgrade industries, in a bid to enhance competitiveness.

Meanwhile, in response to unilateral tariff policies from certain countries, promoting the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade can effectively mitigate external shocks while bringing high-quality products to the domestic market, thereby boosting consumption, Wang said.

To promote the high-quality development of the marine economy, there should be a greater focus on innovation-driven growth, efficient coordination, industrial renewal, harmony between human and the sea, and win-win cooperation, according to the meeting.

It also emphasized increasing policy support and encouraging private capital participation in the marine economy. China should boost its capacity for marine technological innovation, strengthen, optimize and expand its marine industries, enhance marine ecological protection, and promote global cooperation in marine scientific research, disaster prevention and mitigation, and the blue economy, the meeting said, per Xinhua.

High-quality development of the marine economy is an incremental policy to boost China's economic growth. With vast marine resources still untapped, as China's technology matures and application scenarios expand, developing the marine economy can not only provide additional energy resources but also offer more high-quality consumer products and experiences to the market, stimulating new consumer demand and promoting consumption upgrades, Hu said.

"Independent innovation in marine technology can drive trillion-yuan industrial clusters, while strengthening marine ecological protection will offer Chinese solutions for global ocean governance," Wang added.

Economic devt with resilience

Reviewing the first half of the year, despite pressures from external uncertainties and insufficient domestic demand, China's economy has demonstrated strong resilience. This includes the timely introduction of targeted policies, export diversification, and innovation-driven development, Hu said.

Li Chao, spokesperson with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner, told a press conference on June 26 that since the beginning of this year, facing a more complex and severe external environment, we have implemented more proactive macroeconomic policies and accelerated the execution of measures to stabilize employment, the economy, and promote high-quality development. These measures have resulted in overall stable economic performance.

On the supply side, agricultural production has been carried out in an orderly manner, and the industrial and services sectors have seen stable growth, with the value-added of industrial enterprises increasing by 5.8 percent year-on-year in May. On the demand side, consumption and investment have continued to expand, and exports have maintained rapid growth. In May, the total retail sales of consumer goods grew by 6.4 percent year-on-year, marking the highest growth rate since 2024, Li said.

Hu said the focus of policies in the second half of the year remains on promoting consumption, achieving a virtuous economic cycle by reducing inventories, boosting investment, and stabilizing employment.

China's central bank and five other government departments on June 24 issued a guideline outlining 19 measures to boost consumption, with a focus on enhancing financial support for both goods and services to better meet consumer demand. In addition, the NDRC will allocate the third batch of ultra-long special treasury bonds to support the consumer goods trade-in program in July, according to Li.

Wang noted that with the advancement of technology, the deep integration of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and industrial software with the manufacturing sector will make high-tech manufacturing a highlight in China's economic development this year.

"Recently, the World Bank and the OECD have lowered their global economic growth forecasts by 0.4 and 0.2 percentage points, respectively, while maintaining overall stable growth projections for China. International investment banks such as Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs have raised their economic forecasts for China. With existing policies being implemented more rapidly and new reserve policies being rolled out, we are confident and capable of minimizing the uncertainties and adverse impacts of external shocks, promoting sustained and healthy economic development," Li noted.

SOURCE Global Times