By Li Wei, Development Research Center of the State Council

Economic restructuring is a major issue concerning the development of China in a long time to come and also an issue of high concern for the central government. As China is experiencing a transitional stage of economic development, economic restructuring is a pressing, daunting, painstaking and long-term historical mission. Instead of taking a wait-and-see approach, we should take initiatives to seize opportunities based on a clear understanding of the current situation. On the one hand, as the national environment and conditions for development could no longer support the existing economic structure, the traditional development model needs to be changed. The main manifestations of China's unbalanced economic structure are: 1. Unbalanced supply-demand mix; 2. Unbalanced industrial structure; 3. Unbalanced profits distribution among different economic sectors; 4. Unbalanced market competition structure; 5. Unbalanced structure of economic driving forces. On the other hand, the world’s major economies have adopted measures to accelerate self-restructuring, which has become a global trend of development. To fulfill the two centenary goals (i.e. the goals of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the time the CPC celebrates its centenary in 2021 and turning China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, cultural advanced and harmonious by the time the People’s Republic of China marks its centennial in 2049), we should optimize China's economic structure in the new round of global competition, and realize the transformation with the new normal of moderate growth featured by a more advanced form, a more sophisticated division of labor as well as structural improvement. And in order to speed up economic restructuring by innovation, reform and opening-up, we need to fulfill the following tasks: 1. To quicken the pace of innovation, so as to construct the technological basis for restructuring; 2. To press ahead with reform to establish the institutional basis for restructuring; 3. To accelerate a new round of opening-up and build a mechanism for getting better engaged in global restructuring drive.