As China is transforming from a quantity-driven to a quality-driven economy, it's just the right time for new quality productive forces to be announced, Yao Yang, a senior economist at Peking University, said in an interview with China Daily.

Yao said that new quality productive forces will stir more innovation for more new industries to emerge in China. The country's technologies now are more advanced than in many advanced countries, he said, citing the case of the EV and alternative energy sector; in the AI field, China doesn't lag behind the United States that much, he said.

The economist said it takes time for Western countries to get used to a new China, a China with strong innovation basis. He added that China should also extend the benefits of its technological progress to the whole world, particularly to developing countries, so that they can share the fruits of China's technological progress.