The 2017 Global Competitiveness Report, released by IMD, a top-ranked global business school based in Switzerland, shows China’s ranking jumped from 25 in 2016 to 18, with its excellent performance in “employment” ranking at the top among 63 major economies.
At 2017 Summer Davos, Premier Li Keqiang attributed the success to China’s strategic policy, which prioritizes employment on the development agenda, which is also the foundation for inclusive growth.
The rankings include 4 major categories, 20 small categories and 260 indexes, reflecting the resilience of an economy, and its dominance in technology and infrastructure. It has achieved great attention and recognition from international society.
Besides “employment”, China also took first place in terms of “domestic economy”, which enabled it to rise to No 2 in “economic performance”, according to the rankings.
Data proved that against the slow economic growth, urban areas added over 13 million new jobs for four consecutive years, with the surveyed urban unemployment rate kept at around 5 percent.
Premier Li said at the Summer Davos that China regards employment as the key indicator for evaluating the economic climate, and the country will conduct more proactive employment policies to encourage employment through entrepreneurship.
He said the new industries and new business models created by mass entrepreneurship and innovation have increased many employment opportunities in China.
“Increase in residents’ income in China keeps pace with the speed of economic growth; the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality is also falling, and the middle-income group is steadily expanding,” the Premier said, adding that it is a huge achievement for a country with a 1.3 billion population, and also a major contribution to inclusive growth.
Actually, employment indicates that China’s economy is stable and improving and is undergoing transformation and upgrading. Premier Li said that the national surveyed urban unemployment rate in May decreased to 4.91 percent, the lowest in recent years.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a recent report that China’s structural reform has made positive progress, saying the increase in production rate and high-level employment were the main driving engines for the economic growth.
