(Yicai Global) Dec. 31 -- We should always be happy when a new year begins, as, after all, a new year represents hope, letting the past go and welcoming the future. In fact, happiness at the new year comes mainly from expectations bolstered by our confidence in the future, according to An Editor’s Message entitled ‘Happy New Year Anyway’ published recently in YiMagazine.

Looking back on 2021, the global economy slowed amid the Covid-19 pandemic. With the mutating coronavirus, resurgences of the pandemic, continued trade disputes, a lackluster economy and looming inflation, it is not easy to feel happy.

Despite China’s leading gross domestic product growth and booming exports, industrial supply chains and markets across the globe are deeply integrated and interdependent. As a result, the impact of skyrocketing raw material prices, offshore logistics congestion, sluggish consumption and slack investment is gradually appearing.

“The external environment is becoming more complex, more severe and more uncertain, so China will make ‘stability’ the keynote for the economy next year,” according to the Central Economic Work Conference, an annual meeting convened by the CPC Central Committee to set the national agenda for the country’s economy and financial and banking sectors.

As the new year draws near, we feel pleased with our hard-won achievements, but also worry about the severe challenges we face. We cannot be happy just because it is a new year. Economic development has its own timetable. It will not change suddenly due to the arrival of a certain period in the calendar. We must take more forward-looking and precise countermeasures.

Many economists have recently given a lot of interpretations and suggestions on fiscal and monetary policies, investment, consumption, exports as well as structural policies. I believe these policies and suggestions will generate the desired effects in the near future.

But I am more focused on the expressions made during the conference held earlier this month such as “We must adhere to high-quality development and make economic development the central task” and “Micro-policies must continue to stimulate the vitality of market entities. We must boost the confidence of market players and further promote the implementation of fair competition policies.”

These statements emphasize the stability and long-term nature of the policies before and after their implementation. They are also trying to protect the confidence of market participants and ultimately stimulate the vitality of market entities.

This is because confidence is more important than gold in investment, business and consumption. Under the premise of following the laws of the market, a clear development strategy, a stable reform orientation, precise macro-controls and timely policy adjustments are the greatest source and guarantee of confidence.

With China’s vast economic market and huge potential, once entrepreneurs, consumers and investors feel more confidence in the future, the so-called short-term challenges and triple pressures of shrinking demand, supply shocks and weakening expectations will eventually be overcome and conquered.

Editor: Kim Taylor