THE country’s top economic official called for a transition to a new development mode that stresses quality, innovation and energy efficiency in order to spur a sustained economic growth.

China has entered a new development phase, where increasing the quality of output — for example the technical sophistication of manufacturing projects — is more important than increasing quantity, Vice Premier Liu He, China’s top economic policy official, said in an article published yesterday by the People’s Daily.

Foreign-funded companies are very important to the goal of achieving quality development, and the government should encourage the introduction of more competitive products, technologies and services to China, Liu said.

The vice premier also called for stabilizing housing prices while sticking with curbs on speculation. He vowed to stick to curbs on the housing market under the slogan of “houses are for living in, not for speculation.”

Officials should “focus on stabilizing land prices, house prices, and stabilize expectations,” in order to “solve household’s housing problems and promote the healthy development of real estate companies,” Liu said in the broad essay on economic development and the recent Party resolution on history.

Government curbs on financing to the property sector have been the main driver of a slowdown in the housing market, with housing sales, house prices and new construction all falling in recent months. Officials say excess supply of housing is a threat to economic stability, and want investment to go to prioritized sectors like high-tech manufacturing rather than more apartments.

Liu also wrote in the article that the country needs to maintain a key role in global supply chains in order to avoid the “middle -income trap.”

The aim of “common prosperity” now has a more important status in the country’s economic policy and this means a focus on expanding the middle-income population, but common prosperity doesn’t mean“egalitarianism,” he said.

Liu also noted that the country needs an “orderly” transition in production and lifestyles to realize the aim of peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.(SD Agencies)