CPC session opens with focus on income gap By Guo Nei (China Daily) Updated: 2005-10-08 06:57
The fifth plenary session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China (CPC) is scheduled to open in Beijing on Saturday.
An armed police
soldier stands on duty in the Tian'anmen Square in the center of Beijing
October 7, 2005. The fifth plenary session of the 16th Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China opened in Beijing Saturday to discuss the
11th five-year plan for social and economic development.
[newsphoto] | The four-day event, which will have discussions on national economic and
social developments in the next five years, is expected to focus on narrowing
the income gap between the rich and the poor, observers say.
The event is being billed as a crucial moment as China tries to produce a
harmonious society and tries to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor,
the city and the countryside, Tang Min, chief economist of the Asian Development
Bank's China Office was quoted by Xinhua as saying on Friday. "Various signs
have shown that the upcoming fifth plenary session of the 16th CPC Central
Committee will chiefly touch upon the solution to the problem," Tang said.
While maintaining rapid economic growth, China is concerned about balanced
development and social fairness and equality to avoid the growing income gap
between the rich and the poor, analysts say.
In the next five years, the central government might adjust the national
system of income distribution and the fiscal expenditure structure to help the
poor, Lu Zhongyuan, a researcher at the Development Research Centre of the State
Council told Xinhua.
More economic input will go into agriculture to give support and protection
for farmers and expenditure in the agricultural sector will increase more than
in any other sector, Lu predicted.
The average income of the rich was 2.5 times that of the poor in 1995, while
in 2003 that number had grown to 3.23, said Hu Angang, an economic professor at
the Beijing-based Tsinghua University, in a research report.
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