RIO DE JANEIRO, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The 60 years of experience of New China has provided important lessons to the world on how to achieve a balanced and pragmatic national development, Brazilian economist Luis Antonio Paulino said on Thursday.

    Paulino, an economics professor at Sao Paulo State University and head of the university's Confucius Institute, said the history of the People's Republic of China can be divided into two phases: the search for economic self-sufficiency and the reform and opening process.

    Economic self-sufficiency was pursued through a policy of isolation from the global economy, while the opening up process, which started in 1978, caused a significant change in the country.

    Paulino said the period of 1949-1978 was extremely difficult for the Chinese people.

    "The task of modernizing a country as large as China, with an enormous population, an underdeveloped economy and an unbalanced regional development, demanded great sacrifices from the people and great leadership from the Chinese Communist Party to keep the people united," he said.

    The second period, which started from 1978 to the present day, was the period of reform and opening up and its main figure was Deng Xiaoping.

    "During this period, China carried out large reforms in both cities and rural areas as well as in different economic sectors," Paulino said.

    China "opened its economy to the world, releasing the creative energy of millions of people and carrying out a historical transformation from a planned economy to a viable socialist market economy completely integrated into the global economy," he said.

    Paulino said one of the great occurrences of this period was the adoption of the reform and opening up policy at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party in late 1978.

    Another event was Deng's visit to the Chinese city of Shenzhen in 1992, in which he delivered a speech to local leaders emphasizing the necessity of pursuing a new way to socialism with Chinese characteristics.

    "Since then, China has undergone significant changes, and all who visit China are amazed because they find a vigorous society, a people proud of their culture and traditions and committed to the future," Paulino said.

    He said the 60 years since the founding of New China has provided several lessons. The first, there are no ready-made formulas for this development. The second, it is necessary to have courage, not to stay tied to dogma, to keep to the facts, and always look at the practical aspects as a criterion of truth.

    The third lesson, ideas have consequences: there can be no development without an ideology of national development.

    The fourth lesson, people are capable of making great efforts and sacrifices to develop the country if they trust their leaders and realize that their efforts will benefit all people.

    The Brazilian professor also emphasized the role of people's initiative, which according to him must be valued and repaid.

    "The fifth lesson is that it is necessary to value the individual initiative, to release people's creative energy, not suffocate their entrepreneur spirit and allow their efforts to be rightfully recognized by the society. This results in an improvement in life's conditions," Paulino said.