Such a transformation has already begun in China, he said, noting that in the first three quarters of 2012 the per-capita disposable income of urban residents increased by 9.8 percent year on year in real terms while the per-capita cash income of rural residents grew 12.3 percent.
Arvind Subramanian, another senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told Xinhua that, in order to achieve its growth mode transformation, China needs to carry out reforms that can unleash economic vitality, especially those in financial sectors and concerning state-owned enterprises.
Commenting on the conference's pledge to improve social security and people's living standards, Derek Scissors, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, said that the best way to address the issue of income inequality in China is to encourage the development of the private sector, which will also be a priority on the Chinese policy-makers' agenda in the years to come.