President Xi Jinping Gives a Joint Written Interview to the Media of Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico (6)

Q: How important is the 12th Five-Year Plan to China's development?

A: Over the past 30 years and more, China has made major progress in reform and opening up, registering an average annual growth rate of close to 10 percent. As a result, China's overall national strength has grown significantly, and its GDP has become the second largest in the world. On the other hand, the problem that its development is unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable has become increasingly acute. In 2011, the Chinese government adopted the 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, which takes the Scientific Outlook on Development as the underlying guideline and accelerating the shift of growth model as the central task, and projects a 7 percent average annual GDP growth. It shows that we are more interested in the quality and efficiency of economic growth rather than the speed of growth only. We will improve the economic structure, stimulate domestic demand and consumption, and achieve growth driven jointly by consumption, export and investment.

The Plan calls for enhancing capacity for innovation and driving growth more through innovation, so as to turn more products from "made in China" into "created in China".

The Plan takes ensuring and improving people's lives as the starting point and ultimate goal of speeding up the shift of growth model, and sets the target of increasing per capita disposable income of urban residents and per capita net income of rural residents by over 7 percent per year respectively, so that they can grow as fast as the economy, if not faster. Government spending on education, public health and medical services, social security, employment and housing will be substantially increased so that all the people can share in more fruits of development in a fairer way.

The Plan calls for pursuing green, circular and low-carbon development, with focus on energy conservation and pollution reduction. The goal is to build a resource-saving and environment-friendly society and ensure sustainable development, with balance between economic and social development and population, resources and the environment.

The fundamentals of the Chinese economy are sound. First, growth is on a more stable footing, with GDP increasing by 7.8 percent in 2012 and 7.7 percent in the first quarter of this year. Second, progress has been made in shifting growth model and adjusting economic structure. Domestic demand, consumption demand in particular, is playing a significantly bigger role in driving growth, and the upgrading of industrial structure is picking up speed. Third, the employment situation is stable and resident income is rising. In 2012, 12.66 million new urban jobs were created, and per capita disposable income of urban residents and per capita cash income of rural residents increased by 9.6 percent and 10.7 percent respectively in real terms. Fourth, prices of consumer goods and housing remain stable. Consumer prices increased by 2.6 percent in 2012.

As the largest developing country in the world, China still faces many difficulties and challenges on the road ahead. To make life better for all the Chinese people requires sustained and hard efforts. We will continue to unwaveringly pursue reform and opening up and focus our efforts on managing our own affairs well. We will boost friendly relations and cooperation with other countries, and make new progress in advancing reform, opening up and building a modernized country. Looking ahead, we have full confidence in China's future.