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Business
Print Edition> Business
UPDATED: March 13, 2011 NO. 11 MARCH 17, 2011
Setting Out Strategies for the Future Economy
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HAPPY: CITIZENS: Children play at a low-rent housing community in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Improving people's well-being is at the top of the government's checklist (HUANG XIAOBANG)

SUPPORTING: AGRICULTURE: Technicians from the Changxing County Electricity Bureau of Zhejiang Province explain electricity use to and check electricity equipment for local farmers (XU YU)

GOING GREEN: Workers of the Huaibei Electricity Supply Co. in Anhui Province install a photovoltaic system on the roof of a Huantan transformer substation (WANG WEN)

FOR A BETTER ENVIRONMENT: A worker moves raw materials to a biochemical disposal machine at a recycling industrial park in Chaoyang District, Beijing (LUO XIAOGUANG)

The most important agenda of this year's session of the National People Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, held March 5-14, was deliberation and approval of the draft blueprint of China's economic and social development for the next five years, the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15).

When delivering the government work report at the Fourth Session of the 11th NPC on March 5, Premier Wen Jiabao also summarized the main targets and tasks for the 12th Five-Year Plan period. Excerpts follow:

The 12th Five-Year Plan period is crucial for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and for deepening reform and opening up and speeding up the transformation of the pattern of economic development.

We will propel economic development to a new level. We have set a target of 7 percent annual average growth of GDP over the next five years with significant improvement in the quality and performance of economic growth. Based on 2010 prices, the country's GDP in 2015 should exceed 55 trillion yuan ($8.37 trillion). We will continue to strengthen and improve macro-control; keep the overall level of prices basically stable; integrate short-term control policies with long-term development policies; adhere to the strategy of expanding domestic demand; fully tap the huge potential of domestic demand; and more quickly get economic growth to be driven by a balanced mix of consumer spending, investment and exports.

We will accelerate the transformation of the pattern of economic development and economic restructuring. We will adhere to the new path of industrialization with Chinese characteristics, strive to fully integrate informationization with industrialization, upgrade the manufacturing industry, and foster and develop strategic emerging industries. We will accelerate the development of the service sector and raise its value-added contribution to GDP by 4 percentage points. We will actively, yet prudently, carry out urbanization, increase its level from 47.5 percent to 51.5 percent, improve its pattern and forms, and constantly work to raise its quality. We will continue to improve infrastructure, and further strengthen the foundation for economic and social development. We will work hard to develop modern agriculture and accelerate the development of a new socialist countryside. We will thoroughly implement the master strategy for regional development and the strategy of development priority zones, and gradually achieve equality of basic public services. We will promote positive interaction between urban and rural areas and among regions, and the balanced development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries.

We will work hard to develop social undertakings. We will continue to give top priority to education, and steadily raise the educational level of the people. We will adhere to the principle of making innovations and leapfrog advances in key areas; improve the system of and support policies for scientific and technological innovation; and strive to make major scientific and technological breakthroughs. We will increase spending on research and development to 2.2 percent of GDP and promote the conversion of advances in science and technology into actual productive forces. In order to meet the demands of modernization, we will strengthen personnel training and strive to develop a large number of high-caliber personnel. We will vigorously strengthen cultural development and make another great stride forward in the reform and development of culture. We will work hard to develop sports. We will further deepen reform of the pharmaceutical and healthcare systems, improve the basic medical and health care systems, and more quickly reach the goal of making basic medical and health services available to all citizens. We will make innovations in social governance, improve the legal and institutional bases and the capacity of social administration, and ensure society is full of vitality, harmonious and stable.

We will actively respond to climate change. We will strengthen resource conservation and management, intensify the protection of farmland and the environment, strengthen ecological development and systems to prevent and mitigate natural disasters, and comprehensively build our capacity for sustainable development. The proportion of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption should reach 11.4 percent; energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP should be reduced by 16 percent and 17 percent respectively; the release of major pollutants should be reduced by 8-10 percent; forest stock should be increased by 600 million cubic meters; and forest coverage should be increased to 21.66 percent. We will substantially improve water conservancy facilities; make progress in better controlling important tributaries of large rivers as well as lakes and small and medium-sized rivers; and significantly improve agricultural irrigation, the efficiency of water resources use and resistance to flooding.

We will comprehensively improve the people's well-being. We will make increasing employment the foremost objective of economic and social development, create equitable job opportunities for the entire workforce, and create an extra 45 million urban job opportunities over the next five years. We will strive to coordinate increases in people's incomes with economic development and increases in workers' pay with improvements in labor productivity, gradually raise the proportion of individual's income in national income redistribution, increase the proportion of wages in the primary distribution of income, and quickly make the pattern of income distribution more reasonable. The per-capita disposable income of urban residents and the per-capita net income of rural residents will rise by an average annual of over 7 percent in real terms. We will raise the poverty line and reduce the number of people living in poverty. We will more quickly improve the social security system, and continue to raise social security benefits. The basic pension insurance and basic medical insurance systems will cover all urban and rural residents. Participation in the basic medical insurance system for working and non-working urban residents and the new rural cooperative medical care system will be increased and stabilized, and we will increase the proportion of expenses for medical treatment paid out of the medical insurance fund to over 70 percent in accordance with relevant policies. Low-income housing will be made available to around 20 percent of the country's urban households. We will adhere to the basic state policy on family planning and progressively improve it. We will promote balanced population growth in the long term and raise the average life expectancy by one year.

We will comprehensively deepen reform and opening up. We will vigorously press ahead with economic restructuring, actively, yet prudently, advance political restructuring, accelerate reform of the cultural and social management systems, constantly improve the socialist market economy, expand socialist democracy, improve the socialist legal system. We will uphold and improve the basic economic system, and create an institutional environment under which economic entities of all forms of ownership use factors of production equally in accordance with the law, engage in fair competition in the market, and enjoy equal legal protection. We will accelerate the reform of the fiscal, taxation, and financial systems; make fiscal and taxation systems conducive to transforming the pattern of economic development; and develop a financial system that is comprised of diverse organizations, provides efficient service, exercise prudent oversight, and keeps risks within bounds. We will deepen reform of the prices for resource products and environmental protection charges, and develop a sound, flexible mechanism for setting prices for resource products capable of reflecting supply and demand in the market, resource scarcity, and the cost of environmental damage. We will implement a more positive opening up strategy, cultivate new advantages beneficial to our participation in international cooperation and competition.

We will constantly strengthen the government's internal reforms and self-improvement. All the government's power is entrusted by the people, and the government must therefore be responsible for the people and work to benefit them. We must mobilize and organize as many people as possible to manage state and social affairs as well as economic and cultural undertakings in accordance with the law. We must uphold the rule of law as a basic strategy, strengthen laws and regulations to safeguard the people's interests, and carry out administration in accordance with the law. We must establish a sound operational mechanism for decision making. We must make institutional changes to end the excessive concentration of power and lack of checks on power, and resolutely prevent and punish corruption. We must safeguard the people's democratic rights and legitimate rights and interests, and safeguard social fairness and justice.

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