Quality growth for more gains

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, the top leadership has abandoned the GDP-dominant performance approach to assessing how well local officials have been doing their jobs; instead, improvements in people's livelihoods, social progress and the state of the environment are taken as important indexes for how well they are serving the people.

This reflects the country's shift from development focused on quantity to development focused on quality. This does not mean the country does not care about economic growth, rather it means the country is making adjustments to its economic growth model to better meet the needs of the times and people's demands.

"It is not that China does not need economic growth, but that China is now focused more on economic quality, efficiency and dynamism to address its imbalanced and inadequate development," as the authorities have put it.