Faced with downward pressures, China will make efforts in innovating macroeconomic control, reforming supply and demand, and cultivating new driving forces, said Xu Shaoshi, director of the National Development and Reform Commission.

He said at a NDRC meeting on Dec 22 that compared with 2015, next year will be a tougher time for economic development, but many promising factors remain to support economic development in 2016.

Mass entrepreneurship and innovation, administrative approval streamlining, Belt and Road initiative, coordinated regional development, urbanization, and industrial upgrades, high-level opening up, and especially the 13th Five-Year Plan, will inject vigor into the economy, said Xu.

“But we should also keep in mind that difficulties and challenges remain,” he said.

Experiencing fluctuations in economic cycle, China’s industrialization is entering the stage of later development and its relative international advantage is changing from labor force to capital and technology, he said.

It is important to reconstruct the economic structure and adapt to the new normal, he said.