New models promoted to facilitate businesses

In the past five years, new models and industries have emerged to underscore China's high-speed growth, including the introduction of pilot free trade zones and the booming sharing economy.

Since the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone was established in September 2013, a number of measures have been taken to facilitate trade by promoting the negative list for foreign investors, which removed several restrictions on foreign investment, and the single-window service for businesses, meaning all necessary facilities are available in one place.

So far, 11 such pilot zones have been set up in municipalities such as Tianjin and Chongqing, and in the provinces of Shaanxi and Sichuan.

Meanwhile, new industries and business models have recorded rapid rises since 2013 thanks to continuing central government support. On several occasions, Premier Li Keqiang has said the government should be cautious and tolerant toward new industries and businesses.

Last year, value-added in strategic emerging industries rose by 11 percent from 2016, while the value-added of high-tech manufacturing rose by 13.4 percent, according to the 2017 Statistical Communique on National Economic and Social Development, released by the National Bureau of Statistics last week.

Last year, 690,000 electric vehicles were produced nationwide, a rise of 51.2 percent from 2016. Meanwhile, the number of industrial robots rose by 81 percent to 130,000, and 2.9 million civilian drones were manufactured, a rise of 67 percent.

Emerging services made a combined operating profit of more than 744 billion yuan ($117 billion), up by 30 percent year-on-year, the document said.

Online retail sales rose by 32 percent, hitting 7.17 trillion yuan and accounting for 15 percent of total sales of consumer goods, the communique said. By the end of 2016, more than 25 percent of villages around the country had e-commerce delivery stations.

China has also become a leader in the sharing economy as the home of 60 of the world's 224"unicorns" - startups valued at $1 billion or more - according to the Annual Report for the Development of the Sharing Economy released last month by the National Information Center. Thirty-one of those 60 companies were in the sharing economy, accounting for 51.6 percent of the total, the report said.