Innovation is vital for China’s high-quality development amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a webinar hosted by Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (ZUEL) in late June.

“Although China’s resumption of work and production is proceeding in an orderly manner, due to the impact of the East Asian division of labor network and the temporary shutdown of the European and American markets, the Chinese industrial chain is faced with the double pressure of input shortages from the upstream and weak demand in the downstream,” said Li Xiaoping, a professor from ZUEL Economics School. How China, as the world’s largest exporter, can develop a highquality industrial chain is worthy of in-depth discussion.

The “de-globalization” and “desinicization” that occurred in the context of the global pandemic have led to an even worse external environment for China’s high-quality development, said Sheng Bin, dean of the School of Economics at Nankai University. He suggested maintaining an open strategy, upholding multilateralism and multilateral cooperation systems, focusing on and accelerating institutional reforms, and making use of the demonstration effect of highlevel opening up.

“Trade protectionism and the trend of ‘reverse globalization’ are prevailing, which has seriously deteriorated the circumstances for global economic development. The sudden pandemic has hindered trade and investment and exerted a severe impact on the global economy,” said Pei Changhong, a professor at the School of Economics at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Although China’s current economic development is facing unprecedented difficulties, its enormous resilience has made it possible to strive for a reasonable economic growth target for 2020.

The pandemic will not change the fundamentals of China’s longterm economic development. Stable input of factors of production, continuous structural optimization and ongoing institutional reforms determine the fundamentals of China’s economic development, play a positive role in supporting long-term sustainable development, and keep China’s potential economic growth rates within a reasonable range in the long run. Huang Taiyan, president of Minzu University of China, said that in the process of the high-quality development of China’s economy, there is huge room for more factors of production.

Constantly promoting the transition to new driving forces is a key step in high-quality development. According to Pei, it is necessary to bolster the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, boost R&D and application of big data, next-generation information technology and artificial intelligence, develop high-end manufacturing, biomedicine, new energy vehicles, new materials and other emerging industrial clusters, and fuel the digital economy.

In order to further accelerate the economic recovery and propel the high-quality development of China’s industrial chain, Li suggested that the city cluster strategy should be used to integrate across administrative boundaries. Through crossregional agglomeration, barriers are reduced for the flow of factors of production, and the comparative advantages of different regions are merged. Mutual cooperation will help China participate in global competition and resist external risks.

Li also suggested accelerating the digital transformation of the real economy with the help of the Internet Plus strategy. In addition, the New Infrastructure construction, such as 5G and intercity high-speed rail, can support the development of emerging industries.

Pei said that by jointly constructing the Belt and Road, China can accelerate the infrastructure construction of the countries along the route and promote deep integration with these economies, thus building a new international industrial chain, value chain and supply chain, which has injected vitality into economic globalization.