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Chinese Premier on Major Tasks and Goals for Next Five Years
PPremier Zhu Rongji has said that in drafting the 10th Five-Year Plan, China should focus on development, pursue economic restructuring, and take reform and opening to the outside world as well as scientific and technological advancement as the driving forces.
Boosting the living standards of the people should be taken as the fundamental starting point in blueprinting the national economic and social development program for the 2001-2005 period, Zhu said.
He made the remarks last week at the 5th Plenum of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), while making a detailed explanation on the Proposal of the CPC Central Committee for Formulating the 10th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development.
He noted that the 10th five-year plan is the first five-year plan in the new century, in the beginning of the third stage of China's modernization drive and following the completion of the initial stage of establishing the socialist market economy. Therefore, it will be of great significance to formulate a plan that is practical and encouraging and serves as a guideline for economic and social development of the country in the 21st century.
The first 5-10 years of the new century will be a period that is crucial to the country's economic and social development, the strategic restructuring of the economy, the perfecting of the socialist market economy and the expansion of opening-up, according to Zhu.
Zhu pointed out that one of the guiding principles of the proposal is to pinpoint development as a key subject of the 10th five-year plan, concentrating on the central point of economic construction. He said that this decision was based the correct assessment of both domestic and international situations.
Noting that development is the absolute principle, Zhu said that the 10th five-year plan has to be a plan seizing opportunities, accelerating development and maintaining the growth rate on the basis of securing consistency of pace and efficiency.
"In order to maintain rapid economic growth, we have to concentrate on the focal point of improving economic efficiency and carry out strategic restructuring of the economy," he said.
"This is the basic line of the 10th five-year plan," he said.
China has come to the stage of promoting economic growth with economic restructuring, he said. "It will be impossible to make further progress without economic restructuring, and it will be impossible to achieve healthy growth without economic restructuring."
It is not a partial adjustment, but an all-round renovation that involves aspects of industrial structure, regional distribution and relations between urban and rural areas, and is aimed at improving overall quality and competitiveness for a sustainable growth, the premier said.
According to Zhu, the reform and opening-up should be pushed forward in order to maintain rapid growth of the economy. He said that reform and opening-up are necessary for increasing national strength and the people's wealth and are strong driving forces for restructuring the economy and pushing forward economic growth.
Zhu said that system innovation should be a priority in adapting production relations to productive forces, adapting the superstructure to the economic base, and further liberalizing and developing productive forces through deepening the market-oriented reform.
"In order to narrow the gap between China and the developed countries and increase comprehensive national strength, we have to use the advancement of science and technology as another strong driving force, further implement the strategy of revitalizing the nation through science and education, accelerate advancement and innovation of science and technology, foster, attract and assign proper roles to talented personnel so as to achieve new and greater progress in science, technology and education," he said.
Zhu emphasized that the government must attach priority to the improvement of people's living standards. He said that the government has to create more employment opportunities, increase the residents' income, rationalize distribution of income, perfect the social security system and ensure the people having a better life.
Zhu noted that the proposal of the CPC Central Committee has put forward suggestions about the guideline, major tasks and general arrangement of the social and economic development from 2001 to 2005.
He said that the proposal focuses on the issue of social and economic development. Since the proposal is not a summary of the tenth five-year plan, it mainly focuses on important issues of strategy, general situation and policy.
Zhu noted that being approved by the CPC Central Committee, the proposal will serve as the basis for the State Council to draft the outline of the Tenth Five-Year Plan, which has to be approved by the National People Congress (NPC) before being made public and implemented.
He said that the draft version of the outline will include some necessary quotas and projects, though fewer in number and less detailed than those in previous five-year plans. Zhu said that most of the quotas and projects will be predictive and guiding in nature.
He said that the outline will also put forward relevant specific policies and measures that are designed to guide economic activities with economic leverages instead of intervening in operation of enterprises with administrative direction.
Zhu said that this reflects yet another step forward in shifting the guiding idea and method of drafting the plan in accordance with the requirements of the socialist market economy.
This is a distinct feature of the proposal that the CPC Central Committee has put forward, Zhu said.
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