Private sector expects growth on supportive policies

China's private sector is expected to see prosperous growth this year on the back of supportive policies and improvement of the overall business environment, a political advisor said.

Zhang Junkuo, former deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, the nation's Cabinet, and a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks amid the ongoing annual two sessions in Beijing.

Despite the impacts of internal and external uncertainties and the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic to small and medium-sized enterprises, the country's private firms still delivered a stable recovery. The recovery will further continue thanks to a host of supportive policies tailor-made for the private sector, Zhang said.

China will surely achieve an annual growth rate of above 5 percent this year, Zhang said.

One key point for China to achieve solid growth is to continue optimizing the country's business environment to make China more competitive and attractive as an investment destination.

During the two sessions, the country's top leadership vowed unwavering support for the private sector, pledging steps to bolster the confidence of businesses and entrepreneurs, reduce their burdens and promote their healthy and high-quality growth.

To this end, steps to improve the business environment for the private sector, remove institutional barriers to level the playing field for private businesses and better protect their property rights and interests are of significance.

In addition, Zhang said private businesses must sharpen their competitive edge to better embrace both global growth and competition.

"The key to improving private business' competitiveness is to boost innovation, particularly the digital transformation of private firms.

"As new industries keep emerging, the digitalization of businesses has become an unstoppable trend. Such a transition should be accelerated wholeheartedly and as early as possible to generate earlier benefits for themselves," Zhang said.

"In addition, it is important for smaller businesses to plan for digitalization in light of their conditions and gain from the initiative of digitalization."