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Developing Western China Strategy to Raise Quality of life, Economist Says
Chinese economist Hu Angang believes that one of the principal aims of China's strategy to develop western China is to raise the living standards of people in the region.
"If the country follows the old track of concentrating on big projects while neglecting labor-intensive projects in development western China, it is difficult to get impoverished people in the region out of poverty. On the contrary, the gap between the rich and the poor is likely to be enlarged," says Hu, who heads a center for the study of China's national conditions at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In developing western China, a new pattern which serves market needs, efficiency, resource-exploitation and environmental protection should replace the old pattern formed under the influence of the planned economy, market protection, low efficiency and pollution, he says in a paper submitted to the Western Forum of China, which opens today in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
The program of developing western China involves a long process. It will be divided into three phases. The first phase, which will take 10 years, is to lay the emphasis on building infrastructure, improving the environment and readjusting traditional industries while developing new ones. The second phase, which will take two decades, is to narrow the disparity between east and west China.
The third phase, taking another two decades, is working towards affluence.
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