The 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China(CPC)
concluded its fifth plenary session here Tuesday afternoon, which
examined and approved proposals for formulating the 11th Five-Year
Guidelines for National Economy and Social Development.
The four-day meeting discussed a draft proposal set forth by the
CPC Central Committee on the 11th Five-Year
Guidelines(2006-2010).
Participants at the meeting comprises 191 members and 150
alternate members of CPC Central Committee. The Political Bureau of
the CPC Central Committee presided over the meeting.
Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, gave
a working report on behalf of the Political Bureau of the CPC
Central Committee. Premier Wen Jiabao made an exGuidelinesation on
the draft proposal. China's new Five-Year Guidelines, the roadmap
for the country's development in the next five years, will bring
revolutionary changes, analysts said here in Beijing.
From"Getting Rich First" to"Common
Prosperity"
The theory proposed by the late chief architect of China's
reforms, Deng Xiaoping, in the 1970s to allow some of the people to
get rich first will give away to"common prosperity" in a bid to
bridge the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and to avoid
polarization of the society.
That is a historic adjustment to the pattern of five-year
Guidelinesssince China changed its approach to economic and social
development in the 1970s.
"It shows that the CPC will give special attention to the
construction of a balanced mechanism under a market economy,"
saidHu Angang, an expert on macroeconomics at Qinghua
University.
After China decided to launch economic reforms in 1978, Deng
Xiaoping proposed the principle of allowing some of the regions and
some of the people to get rich first to achieve a final"common
prosperity".
The new idea departed from the egalitarianism, yet managed to
energize the country.
More than 20 years later, the average Gross Domestic
Products(GDP) per capita has risen above US$1,000 and is expected
to reach US$3,000 in 2020.
But China's rapid economic growth engendered new problems.
The lowest-income families, comprising the bottom 10 percent
ofall families, owns less than 2 percent of all the residents'
assets in the society, while the highest-income families, or the
top 10 percent of all the families, own over 40 percent of the
total assets, government statistics show.
Chinese leaders have warned against extremes of poverty and
wealth, increasing unemployment and intensified social
conflict.
"Common prosperity is not an unreachable goal, but the basic
principle and pursuit of socialism," said Hu.
From"Growth Rate" to"Sustainable
Development"
The recognition that economic growth is not equal to economic
development and that growth is not the final goal of development,
will be included in the 11th Five-Year Guidelines for the first
time, said analysts.
Top leaders have criticized old concepts of economic growth many
times, saying that"economic development at the center" does not
mean"with speed at the center."
Blind pursuit of economic growth has led to blind investment,
damage to the environment and false statistics. The country's
helmsmen are worried that without changing China's concept of
growth, the economy might develop an unbalanced structure with a
lack of driving power.
In the 11th Five-Year Guidelines, the economic growth will be
definedas"Serving the people to improve life quality," said
analysts.
"A prediction can be made that in the next five years China will
pursue growth in a fair, balanced and sustainable way," said Tang
Min, chief economist with the Asian Development Bank's China
office.
China will control the use of foreign investment in the 11th
Five-Year Guidelines period, said experts.
Government statistics show that foreign trade accounts for
over70 percent of China's economy. Frequent trade frictions have
caused huge costs to the economy.
China has become a major consumer of energy resources in the
world. International energy institutions predict that from 2002
to2030 around 21 percent of the world's new demand for energy
resources will come from China. In 2004, nearly 50 percent of the
petroleum used in China was imported.
China will try to change its heavy reliance on foreign
investment and resources to secure its national economy in the next
five years, said analysts.
Favorable to Social Services
The new five-year Guidelines will bolster social services to
deal with the imbalances in economic and social development, said
analysts.
China's top leaders stressed that it has become urgent to
solvethe problem of strong economic growth accompanied by weak
social development.
The problem of social security is particularly serious in the
countryside, where the medical care system and welfare are
extremely weak.
During the period from 1993 to 2003, the number of people with
no access to medical insurance in the country increased from 900
million to one billion, with the percentage rising from 67.8
percent to 80.7 percent. The number in the urban area rose from
96.53 million in 1993 to 300 million in 2003.
"In the next five years, China will place more emphasis on
science and technology, education and health care in policy and
investment," said Ding Yuanzhu, a researcher at the economic and
social development research institute under the National
Development and Reform Commission.
All rural children are expected to enjoy nine-year of free
education before 2010, which will reduce farmers' economic burden
by 100 billion yuan(US$12.37 billion) every year, analysts
said.
"The poor and the weak will get more protection and have greater
access to social welfare," said Ding.
(Xinhua News Agency October 11, 2005)