Having seen Beijing residents rushing to buy cabbages to store for the winter in the 1980s, Andrey Kirillov, Beijing bureau chief of ITAR-TASS, would never have thought of the dramatic changes in China three decades later.

"Today people can enjoy better food and clothing and can afford luxury purchases," said the Russian journalist, who has been working in China for nearly two decades.

Kirillov is one of a large number of foreign correspondents in China impressed by China's soaring economic strength on the eve of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.