BEIJING - China is confident it will sustain its economic recovery and achieve stable development this year, said an official with the country's top economic planner.

The country is still in an important period of strategic opportunity for development, Ning Jizhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Ning, also head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that to foster a new development paradigm, efforts will be made to improve the quality of the supply system through work in areas including sci-tech innovation, industrial and supply chains, and grain security.

In 2021, China will enhance demand-side management and expand domestic demand further by tapping the potential in new consumption models, increasing effective investment and implementing development strategies such as coordinated regional development and people-centered urbanization, he said.

Ning underscored efforts to deepen China's reform and opening-up, push forward green development and guarantee the people's well-being.

However, he noted forthcoming challenges such as the global spread of the virus, uncertainties in the external environment, pressure from virus control at home, as well as structural contradictions in the domestic economy.

To maintain necessary support for economic recovery, China will keep its macro policies consistent, stable and sustainable in 2021, according to Ning, also pledging to make macro policies more targeted and coordinated.

China will work to ensure its economy runs in an appropriate range and will continue to implement proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy in 2021, according to the annual Central Economic Work Conference last month.

China's GDP expanded 4.9 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2020, up from 3.2 percent growth in the second quarter and a 6.8 percent slump in the first quarter.