The promise of the 13th Five-Year Plan
- By Niranjan Sahoo
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 17, 2016
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Xi reviews a report on poverty alleviation progress in Shibadong village in Southwest Hunan province. [Photo/ Wang Dongjie with cctv.com] |
After careful deliberation, this year's National People's Congress (NPC) session adopted the draft outline of the crucial 13th Five-Year Plan, an important document that would shape the critical contours of both China's economy and society for the next five years.
Coming at a time when the global economy is struggling to recover, the 13th Five-Year Plan has done well to dwell on various possibilities, balancing between growth and the environment, a trade-off between prosperity and redistribution and building bridges between the old and the new paradigm of growth.
The Plan's vision of turning China into a "moderately prosperous society by 2020" by redirecting energies to service led growth and anchoring a space for medium as well as high end manufacturing are well thought out strategies. Placing a strong emphasis on gigantic projects such as the "Belt and Road" initiative and having targeted investment on cutting edge infrastructure projects such as high speed railways and motorways would go a long way to spur employment and serve critical redistributive functions.
The best things about the new development blueprint are its realistic projection of growth (6.5 percent). In a way, this takes into account the new global economic reality, the cyclical issues in the Chinese economy and new challenges such as climate change, demographics and emergent technologies. In short, the plan seeks a path of growth that is ambitious, yet attainable.
Building a "moderately prosperous society by 2020" is an implicit push for driving China out of proverbial "middle income trap." Aware of the plights of many Southeast Asian and Latin American countries caught up in the middle income trap for many years, the 13th Five-Year Plan envisions a roadmap to double the per capita GDP by 2020. Even with a lowered growth target of 6.5 percent, such a goal is achievable.
According to many economists, China's per capita GDP will reach $12,500 dollars by 2020, effectively making it a high income economy. Such a lofty vision of turning China into a high income country has been backed by a deft strategy and clear roadmap of actions.
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