Can you picture China in five years?

Can you picture China in five years (2011-2015)?

Will it still be difficult to buy a house in big cities like Beijing? Will the income gap between the rich and poor narrow or widen? Is the growth model relying on exports or domestic consumption? How about the investment environment in China? In what areas will the government provide policy support? Are we prepared for an aging Chinese society? Is China ready to shoulder its global responsibilities？

There are no easy answers to these questions, which nonetheless need prudent analysis and well-informed strategies, to realize the ultimate goal of development, reform and opening up.

What goal? “To give all Chinese people a happy life,” in the words of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee's Proposal on Formulating the Twelfth Five-year Program (2011-2015) on National Economic and Social Development was adopted at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee, which ended Oct 18. The draft is subject to approval by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, when it convenes its annual session next year.

This special coverage focuses on the proposal and the extensive issues that will shape the country's development over the next five years. You are welcome to offer your suggestions on any issues about China’s economic and social development. Editor’s email: webeditor@chinadaily.com.cn.

Balanced urban-rural development

The existing dual economic structure of cities and the countryside is the "biggest structural problem" in China's economic and social development, and narrowing the urban-rural development gap is the most difficult task to the construction of a well-off society and modernization. For a developing country with 1.3 billion populations, feeding itself is always a top priority.

Problems in the urbanization process, including excessive population growth and poor traffic management, should be tackled with great efforts. 

Balanced regional development

Priority should be given to development in the western regions, and regions mainly inhabited by ethnic groups should receive stronger policy support. The country should also speed up the development and opening up of border areas, enhancing the construction of international corridors and border cities to enrich local residents.

Climate change is a serious challenge facing human society. China will actively encourage global co-operation on climate change under the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility". China is set to make reducing its energy consumption intensity and carbon dioxide emissions "binding goals" over the next five years.

Energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product and carbon dioxide emissions will fall markedly, and the ecological environment will be improved noticeably. The country would devote major efforts to boosting the efficiency of energy use, developing a "recycling economy," promoting the economic use of natural resources and strengthening environmental and ecological protection, it said. China would forge ahead with its research and utilization of low-carbon technologies and make progressive efforts to establish carbon trade markets

Cultural causes and industries should be further developed. A public culture service system should be basically established with the emphasis in grassroots rural areas and central and western regions. More support should be given to non-profit cultural undertakings and cultural heritage protection. 

Domestic consumption

China should establish a long-term mechanism to boost domestic consumption to turn potential demand into actual buying power in the next five years. China needs to put further efforts in promoting urbanization, improving the income distribution system, expanding coverage of the social security network, improving basic public services, and upgrading the consumption structure, Wen Jiabao said.

Economic growth Pattern

China will accelerate the transformation of the economic growth, "a profound reform in the country's economic and social development" which demanded unswerving efforts.

China takes domestic demand expansion, especially household consumption, as a long-term strategy to maintain healthy and stable economic development and transform the economic development pattern.

China will enter a new period of equal focus on imports and exports from sole focus on exports and equal importance to adsorbing foreign investment and investing overseas from focusing on attracting foreign capital.

Finance

China should further reform its financial system to steadily promote the market-oriented interest rate reform and enhance a market-based managed floating exchange rate regime.

The government should speed up construction of a fiscal and taxation system that helped transform the mode of economic growth. Authorities should promote resources tax reforms, start levying environment protection taxes, and study property tax reforms.

To expand the scope of value-added tax, reduce business tax and to rationally adjust the consumption tax, in a bid to make the taxation system favorable to upgrading industry structure and developing the service industry. Counties with mature conditions would be allowed to set up their own community banks and offer small loans to farmers.

 Peaceful development   Seizing opportunities key  Political reform  Clear aim  Four challenges

By exercising democracy in elections, decision-making, management and supervision and guaranteeing the people's rights to be informed, to participate, to be heard and to oversee, the ruling party and the government are emancipating themselves and stepping up governance reform for good governance, said Yu Keping, a prominent theorist.

Yu is well versed in the research of political system. His famous works including the article Democracy Is A Good Thing, which has been widely circulated and sparked heated discussions home and abroad.

Good governance is a guarantee for CPC to remain in power, said Wang Yukai, a professor at the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Governance.

China launched the administrative restructuring in 1982, which abolished life tenure at leading posts and reduced the number of departments under the State Council from 100 to 61. In 1984, China began to separate government functions from enterprise management and enterprises were no longer regarded as "workshops" of the government.

Yu Keping has identified five priorities of China's governance reform in the next five years: Building a government under the rule of law, Building a responsible government, Building a service-oriented government, Building a transparent government, Building a clean government.  

Wen Jiabao called for the establishment of a housing system that is in accordance with China's situation, that more efforts should be made to build affordable housing and to provide more homes for mid- and low-income families. China would continue to curb speculative demand in the property market to promote the steady and healthy development of the real estate sector.

New strategic industries

The industries were new-generation information technology, energy-saving and environment protection, new energy, biology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials and new-energy cars.

China should develop the new strategic industries and accelerate the growth of the service sector, which could play an important role in boosting domestic demand and creating more jobs.

China s facing both increasing investment demand and overcapacity issues in some sectors while witnessing rapid industrialization and urbanization, and more attention should be paid to the development of China's modern industries. The manufacturing sector is still at a low industrial level and structural improvement is urgently needed.

China will improve the quality of foreign investment utilization, with better "soft environment" for foreign investors and further protection on investors' legitimate rights and interests. The country will take steady steps to open more service sectors to foreign investors, including logistics, education, healthcare, sports and financial sector.

China will positively and further open up as the country is working to pay equal attention to imports and exports, as well as attracting foreign investment and investing abroad.

No trade protectionism

China will actively participate in global economic governance and regional cooperation in the next five years by promoting reforms in the global economic system, and help establish a trade regime that promotes a balanced development, shared benefits and win-win progress. "China opposes trade protectionism in all its forms.”China will accelerate the pace in implementing the "going global" strategy and support all kinds of enterprises to invest abroad by offering more services and guidance. The country should make efforts in developing multi-national companies and international financial institutions, while enhancing the yuan's role in cross-border trade and investment.

Conditions are poor in China's many grassroots medical institutions, where misdiagnoses and medical accidents are often reported, but larger hospitals with better resources often complain of being overburdened by patients from all parts of the country. How to solve these problems?

New health-care resources would be channelled to rural and urban communities and favorable polices will be implemented to encourage medical workers, especially general medical practitioners, to serve long terms in grassroots medical institutions.

Other measures include: to promote the cooperation between larger hospitals in the cities and grassroots medical institutions, improve the quality and efficiency of medical services through competition, meet the public's need for diverse medical services, increase financial support for medical services, deepen health-care reforms and give more incentives to medical workers to meet the basic needs of all Chinese.

China's aging population would increase in the five years from 2011 to 2015. The government would stick to the fundamental strategy of family planning with gradually improved policies for balanced long-term demographic development. The country would strive to curb the gender imbalance in newborns and improve their health, further promote equality of men and women and better protect minors.

China will strive to better protect workers' rights, enhance the enforcement of labor laws, improve the mechanism for resolving labor disputes, and improve working conditions. Efforts will be made to protect the people's rights to know, participate, express and supervise. The proposal also pledges intensified protection of human rights.

China would steadily push forward interest rate reform, gradually achieve the renminbi's convertibility under capital account, and improve foreign exchange reserve's operation and management. 

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Foreign input sought on next Five-Year Plan

As China prepares to outline its national economic and social development plan for the next five years, a public opinion campaign is being launched in which foreigners are being invited to submit their recommendations.

After soliciting public opinion and analyzing economic data, China will set specific targets for economic growth, economic restructuring, consumer prices, environmental protection and low-carbon development in the 12th Five-Year Plan, which will be approved in March 2011, said Zhang Ping, head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Over the next two months, individuals and agencies can send e-mails to 125@ndrc.gov.cn, preferably in either Chinese or English.

Comments from those who live overseas can be submitted to media organizations like China Daily and People's Daily Overseas Edition

Scientific outlook on development should be implemented in all sectors of reform and opening-up and the modernization drive, the first time a five-year plan had adopted such a theme. The proposal also emphasizes a more people-oriented development approach and a comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development plan.

The Scientific Outlook on Development was proposed by the CPC in 2003, against the backdrop of rapid economic growth and a series of problems including excessive consumption of resources, damages to the environment and a widening gap between the rich and poor. It was inscribed in the CPC Constitution in 2007 at the 17th CPC national congress.

Wealth gaps are one of the Chinese people's greatest concerns. A reasonable income mechanism is key to social justice. Premier Wen compared China's wealth to a cake. "We should not only try to make a larger cake, but also work hard to divide it more evenly."

In the next fiver years, wages for low-income earners will rise drastically and the amount of people living in poverty will be reduced greatly.

Social security system is established but remains incomplete with low standards and gaps between urban and rural areas. China will expand the coverage of its social security system, increase the standards of social insurances and strive for a unified security system across the country.

A health insurance system that covers both rural and urban China would be further improved with gradually increasing standards.