'10th FYP': China's Overall National Strength Expected to Rank World's 5th

The Outline of the "10th Five-year Plan" (10th FYP) for the Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China has been formally published. The Outline sets forth a series of anticipated targets for China's economic and social development in the next five years. Through these figures we can see what new leaps the Chinese nation will achieve in the early years of the new century.

Overall National Strength Expected to Rank Among World's Top-Five

According to the third-stage development strategy, in the first 10 years of the new century, China's GDP will double on the basis of 2000. During the "10th Five-year Plan" period, the economic growth rate is anticipated at an annual average of around 7 percent. The GDP will jump from the present 8,900 billion yuan to a high stage of 12,000 billion yuan, and per-capita GDP will also rise from the present 6,900 yuan to 9,400 yuan.

During the "Ninth Five-year Plan" period, the average annual growth of China's GDP was 8.3 percent. After various factors are taken into consideration, the anticipated goal for the average economic growth rate is set at about 7 percent during the "10th Five-year Plan" period. Although this rate is a bit lower than that in the "Ninth Five-year Plan" period, it remains a relatively high rate. Our economic base is still relatively weak, people's living standards are comparatively low, development between regions is uneven, so arduous efforts must be made to attain this goal on the basis of improving efficiency.

According to relevant materials of the World Bank, in 1999 China's GDP ranked seventh in the world, its gap with Italy which ranked sixth has been greatly narrowed. By the end of 2000, China's GDP exceeded US$1,000 million for the first time, which was basically at the same level as that of Italy. According to an estimate made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), during the "10th Five-year Plan" period, China will continue to keep a relatively high economic growth rate, remaining one of the countries with a fairly fast economic growth in the world, its comprehensive national strength is expected to surpass Italy and France to enter the ranks of the world's top five. However, due to a huge population base number, China's per-capita economic aggregate still remains at the world's middle-low level and its gap with developed countries is still quite large.

"Primary Industry" Down, "Tertiary Sector" Up

The Outline states that the principal anticipated targets for China's economic restructuring will be: the added value of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in 2005 will stand respectively at 13 percent, 51 percent and 36 percent of the GDP, and the proportion of employees to all work force of the whole society respectively at 44 percent, 23 percent and 33 percent.

Then, how large is this proportion now? According to materials from the National Bureau of Statistics, the added value of China's primary, secondary and tertiary industries to the GDP stands respectively at 15.9 percent, 50.9 percent and 33.2 percent. In 1999 the proportion of employees to the total of the whole society was 50.1 percent, 23 percent and 26.9 percent respectively. A comparison of the two makes it clear that in the next five years, the tendency of change in China's industrial structure will be: "primary industry" falls, "tertiary industry" rises, the "secondary industry" remains basically unchanged.

At present, the overall level of China's labor force engaged in agricultural production and the production method remain very backward, the proportion of developed countries' labor force engaging in agricultural production is less than 5 percent of all labor force, while that of China's reaches as high as 50 percent. In the vast expanse of rural areas, the phenomenon of inadequate employment of farmers is quite common, so adjusting the agricultural and rural economic structure and successfully shifting surplus rural labor power are current urgent tasks.

The underdevelopment of tertiary industry is the principal problem existing in China's industrial structure. Since the "Ninth Five-year Plan", although China's tertiary sector has experienced rapid development and its proportion to GDP has become ever-larger, there still exists a big gap when compared to other countries in the world, not only lagging behind the 60-80 percent level of developed countries, but also lower than the average 37 percent level of low-income countries in the world.

The "10th Five-year Plan" lays particular stress on the need to develop service trades, this not only represents an important move to expand consumption and stimulate economic growth, but also is an important means for expanding employment. During the "10th Five-year Plan" period, China will sustain a fairly big employment pressure, the tertiary industry will become the main channel through which to absorb job-seekers.

Three "Considerable Rises", Strengthening Foundation for Rejuvenating Country by Relying on Science and Education

The Outline states that the main anticipated targets for scientific, technological and educational development are: In 2005, the proportion of social R&D funds to GDP will be raised to over 1.5 percent; the achievements gained in the basic universality of nine-year compulsory education will be further consolidated, the gross attendance rate of junior middle school will exceed 90 percent, and efforts will be made to push the gross attendance rate of senior middle school education and higher education to around 60 percent and 15 percent respectively.

An analysis of these indexes makes it clear that during the "10th Five-year Plan" period, prominence in implementing the strategy for rejuvenating the country through science and education will be given to the following three aspects: (1). Substantially increasing R&D funds. In 1999 China's R&D funds came to 67.89 billion yuan, accounting for 0.83 percent of GDP, an all-time high, this figure, however, still lagged far behind the average 2 percent level of developed countries. During the "10th Five-year Plan" period, the said proportion will be raised to a fairly big margin of 1.5 percent. (2). Considerably raising the gross attendance rate of senior middle school education.

In 2000 the attendance rate of China's senior middle school education stood at 38.2 percent. During the "10th Five-year Plan" period, this proportion will be raised to about 60 percent, senior middle school education will undergo a big development. (3). Dramatically elevating the gross attendance rate of higher education. In 2000 the number of students at China's institutions of higher learning hit a slight excess of 5.56 million, the gross attendance rate of higher education exceeded 10 percent, the figure will reach 15 percent during the "10th Five-year Plan" period, there will be new, greater development of higher education, and will thus provide more opportunities for young people to enjoy higher education.

In addition, during the "10th Five-year Plan" period, China will continue to consolidate the achievement gained in nine-year compulsory education, further elevate the gross attendance rate of senior and junior middle schools, in particular, great efforts will be made to develop compulsory education in poverty-stricken areas, providing more opportunities for school-age children there to receive education.

Re-creating Blue Waters and Azure Skies to Improve Living Environment

The Outline clearly sets main anticipated targets for sustainable development, this represents an important move taken with an eye on improving the future living environment.

During the "Ninth Five-year Plan" period, China achieved important headway in its work of environmental protection, its forest coverage rate exceeded 16.6 percent. The proportion of environmental protection input to GDP reached 1 percent for the first time. But China's forest coverage rate still lagged behind the world's average 27 percent level, per-capita forest area was equivalent to only one-fifth of the world's average. The country's pollutant discharge quantity remained at a fairly high level.

This being the case, the appeal for blue waters and azure skies has become the common view of people in various social circles. The Outline clearly states that the deteriorating ecological tendency should be brought under control, and the forest coverage rate be pushed to 18.2 percent, and urban greenery coverage rate to 35 percent. With improvement in urban and rural environmental quality, the total amount of main pollutant discharge will be reduced by 10 percent compared to 2000.

Population growth rate is an important aspect of the target for sustainable development. During the "Ninth Five-year Plan" period, the reproduction type of China's population brought about a historic change from "high birth, low death, and high growth" to "low birth, low death and low growth", with natural growth rate of population dropping to 9.7 percent. During the "10th Five-year Plan" period, China will continue to implement the basic national policy of family planning, maintain a low birth level, keeping the natural population growth rate within 9 per thousand, and the country's total population within 1.33 billion in 2005. This will make it possible to create a favorable environment for economic and social development.

Showing Concern for People's Life, Building a Well-off Society

There is a salient characteristic in the "10th Five-year Plan", that is showing great concern for people's life. This can be seen from the anticipated targets of the Outline.

The Outline lists for the first time clear anticipated targets for "improving people's living standards": Per-capita disposable income for urban citizens and per-capita net income of rural residents will grow by about 5 percent annually. In 2005, per-capita housing floor space of urban residents will increase to 22 square meters, the nation's wired TV household penetrating rate will reach 40 percent . According to this anticipated goal, by the end of the "10th Five-year Plan", the per-capita disposable income of Chinese urban citizens will have exceeded 8,000 yuan, per-capita net income of rural residents will have approached to 3,000 yuan.

What is the current income level of China's urban and rural residents? In 2000, per-capita disposable income of urban resident was 6,280 yuan, the per-capita net income of rural residents was 2,253 yuan. Compared to the set targets, there is room for income raises of 1,720 yuan and 747 yuan respectively.

By the end of 2000, per-capita housing area for urban residents had reached 13.6 square meters, the figure will be increased to 22 square meters by the end of the "10th Five-year Plan" period, this task is quite arduous. Nevertheless, compared with developed countries, China's housing area still lags considerably behind, for example, the American per-capita housing area is 60 square meters, German 38 square meters, and Japanese 31 square meters.

The Outline also states that five years later, newly added urban employees and agricultural manpower transferred will each reach 40 million people, registered urban unemployment rate will be kept at about 5 percent. This is also an important aspect of the effort to increase income and improve people's living standards. It is reported that in recent years, average annual growth of the nation's employees has been less than 1 percent, the period witnessing the slowest growth in the number of employees since the launch of the reform and opening drive. The task of raising the employment rate, particularly promoting re-employment of laid-off workers, remains very arduous.

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