Nation's economy on stable growth track

Despite short-term headwinds, China's economy is heading for long-term steady growth on the back of its highly competitive and vast domestic market as well as its growing capacity for technological innovation, officials and experts said.

"The potential of the Chinese market lies in competition", as the market not only features a vast size but also the vitality brought by intense competition, Ning Jizhe, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, said on Thursday.

He cited that the fourth national economic census, which was released on Wednesday, provided evidence of China's large group of market entities by global standards, as the total number of legal entities in the secondary and tertiary industries, and some small businesses had surpassed 100 million by the end of last year.