Looking ahead: hopes for 2016

Major figures from academia, the military, social organizations and government predict their highlights for the year to come

1 Justin Yifu Lin, economics professor at Peking University and former World Bank chief economist

The economic slowdown will remain one of China's major challenges next year. The world's second-largest economy is suffering the longest decline in its rate of growth since the government launched the reform and opening-up policies more than 30 years ago. Year-on-year GDP, which contracted to 6.9 percent in the third quarter from 10.3 percent in 2010, is likely to continue to decline in 2016, as the overall economy is still in a cyclical downtrend which is seriously affected by the global economic recession environment.