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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 06, 2002

How Far Is China Away from New-type Industrialization?

The 16th CPC National Congress clearly put forward the "new-type industrialization" concept for the first time, made it the first task for economic construction and reform in the first 20 years of this century and put it in a prominent position.


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The 16th CPC National Congress clearly put forward the "new-type industrialization" concept for the first time, made it the first task for economic construction and reform in the first 20 years of this century and put it in a prominent position. Then, what is the standard for new-type industrialization? What experiences and lessons do countries have in their road to accomplishing industrialization? What mistaken areas should we avoid in accomplishing new-type industrialization? To seek answers to these questions, People's Viewpoint had a dialog with the Economic Weekly of People's Daily.

VIEWPOINT: What's the standard for judging whether a country has achieved industrialization? What's the present state of China's road to industrialization?

WEEKLY: There are three most important structural indices for judging whether a country has accomplished industrialization in the world today: The proportion of agricultural output value to GDP must be reduced to below 15 percent; the proportion of the number of farmers employed to the total number of employees must be reduced to below 20 percent; and urban population must rise to above 60 percent.

In China, among the 1979 GDP aggregate, the proportions of primary, secondary and tertiary industries represented 28 percent, 48 percent and 24 percent respectively, the figures changed to 15 percent, 51 percent and 34 percent in 2001. Therefore, judged by the indexes of output value, China had basically accomplished industrialization by the end of the last century.

However, judged from the more important indices of employment and urbanization, China has just covered about half of the road to industrialization. There were 365 million employees in China's primary industry in 2001, remaining as high as 50 percent of the total number of employees, higher than the 20 percent international standard for industrialization; while by 2000, the proportion of China's urban population was 36.2 percent, lower than the international standard (60 percent).

VIEWPOINT: How long did it take developed countries to traverse the whole course to industrialization? How many countries in the world today that have accomplished industrialization?

WEEKLY: Britain was the first country to start and accomplish industrialization in the world, and it spent around 100 years to achieve industrialization, beginning in the 70s of the 18th century and finishing in the 70s of the 19th century. It was followed by major countries on the European continent and the United States, it also took them more than a century to accomplish, beginning from the late 18th century and early 19th century. By the early 20th century, principal European and American countries had basically realized industrialization. By the end of the 20th century, among more than 200 countries around the world, 60-70 had by and large realized industrialization, their population was less than 20 percent of the world total.

VIEWPOINT: Then, what experiences and lessons for us to learn from the developed countries that had taken the road to industrialization for a period of 100 years?

WEEKLY: The industrialization of developed countries began basically under the influence of the first technical revolution, at that time, e-information technology was far from being emerged, and the question of information had even not given expression to its importance in the process of industrialization. Informationization has developed very rapidly in recent years, it is entirely possible for us to integrate the process of informationization and industrialization, propelling industrialization with informationization, and promoting informationization through industrialization and thus bringing about a leaping development of the productive forces.

In developed countries' industrialization, industrial production was basically of an extensive or a resource consumption type, the continuous advancement of industrialization was built on the basis of high input of resources, they often encountered serious bottlenecks of funds, technology and market in the process of industrialization, but now it is completely possible for us to make use of domestic and international markets and domestic and international resources for worldwide allocation of resources. Nowadays, enormous capital, technology, management expertise and other production elements are flowing everywhere in the world, they greatly favor the good image of China's investment security island and its fairly solid material and technical foundation. New-type industrialization requires us to make the best use of the world's enormous advantages.

Developed countries followed the road to industrialization by preceding environmental improvement with pollution. The issue of environmental pollution became surfaced in the industrialization process, and the question of tackling the problem was really put on the agenda only when industrialization neared completion or after completion. The lesson we need to draw on is that in the process of accomplishing new-type industrialization, we should pay special attention to ecological construction and environmental protection, and properly handle the relations between economic construction on the one hand and resources and the environment on the other.

VIEWPOINT: In the process of achieving new-type industrialization, shall we take China's own road in light of the country's actual conditions in addition to learning the successful experiences from developed countries?

WEEKLY: In the past, China's industrialization was based mainly on the capital-intensive heavy industry, and the flow of rural labor force into the cities was strictly restricted, as a result, the role of industrial development in absorbing redundant rural labor force was limited, to follow the road to new-type industrialization requires that in the next 20 years, we should transfer 220 million agricultural population to the secondary and tertiary industries, by then, the number of employees in the secondary and tertiary industries will have increased by 60 percent from the present level. Judged from China's actual condition, industrial development should facilitate the continued transfer of agricultural labor force and the raise of the degree of urbanization and help display the advantage of China's human resources.

VIEWPOINT: In taking the road to new-type industrialization, what is the problem that should arouse our attention?

WEEKLY: To follow the new-type industrialization road, we should avoid these two mistaken areas:

The road to new-type industrialization objectively requires adjustment and optimization of the industrial structure. In the course of adjustment, we should correctly handle the relations between the development of high and new industries and traditional industries, between capital- and technology-intensive industries and labor-intensive industries, and between virtual economy and entity economy. We should make both airplanes and leather shoes. We should form an industrial pattern that takes high and new technological industries as the lead and basic industries and manufacturing industry as the support, and that ensures the all-round development of the service industry. Because China's human resources are particularly rich which generate tremendous pressure on employment, therefore we should not give up traditional industries and labor-intensive industries even for dozens of years to come.

Realization of new-type industrialization requires that the two kinds of mechanisms of market regulation and government regulation should simultaneously display their roles, but market regulation should be the most fundamental and most important aspect. At present, the various "major ideas" and "major skills" of some local governments for the realization of new-type industrialization are prone to interfering in the economy, this tendency should be corrected. For instance, in investing in informationization, attention should be paid to market demands, one should not artificially and blindly pursue so-called "digital city", "information port", "Chinese-fashioned Silicon Valley", etc.; in respect of environmental protection, we should make more use of the means of marketization in addition to intensifying administrative management.

By People's Daily Online


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