The coronavirus outbreak has triggered a crisis and a big test for China, but with timely and coordinated responses, China would navigate through the unprecedented hardship and fulfill the development targets.

The epidemic is a major public health emergency that has spread the fastest, caused the most extensive infection and has been the most difficult to contain in the country since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

This is a key observation given by Chinese President Xi Jinping as he spoke to over 170,000 Chinese officials from top to grassroots level in a video conference on Sunday.

The top leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has convened seven times over the past 30 days, figuring out the most pressing issues in virus containment and mapping out strategies.

The positive trend in the prevention and control work is now expanding after arduous and coordinated efforts have been put in place, said the latest meeting.

New cases and fatalities continue to drop in Hubei and its capital Wuhan for days, the center of the virus fight. Some 24 provincial level regions reported zero new infections on Sunday and six provinces lowered their response level from the highest. 

"It has been proven that the CPC Central Committee's judgment on the situation of the epidemic is accurate, all work arrangements are timely, and the measures taken are effective," said Xi.

In the Sunday meeting, Chinese officials were urged to remain vigilant and make unremitting efforts as China is delicately balancing between disease control and resumption of normal social and economic growth. These two tasks are intertwined and neither one can be omitted.

There is no doubt that the epidemic has dealt a relatively huge blow to China’s economic and social development as production and consumption declined. However, the disease hasn’t weakened the fundamentals of China's long-term sound economic growth.

The central government takes full use of its policy toolkit, coordinating resources to put social and economic activities back on track. Cross-department efforts have been made to strengthen the regulation role of macro-economic policies, ensure employment, continue the task of alleviating poverty, as well as to keep foreign trade and investment stable.

The Chinese economy is equipped with powerful resilience and potential, which granted it much leeway to offset the impact and recover. Therefore, the International Monetary Fund expects the growth of the world’s second largest economy to return to normal in the second quarter of 2020.