China's Economic Growth is Great Contribution to Human Development

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, July 25, 2002

China's Economic Growth is Great Contribution to Human Development

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As the most populous country in the world, China's fast economic growth and notable improvement of people's well-being are great contributions to the human development, an United Nations Development Program (UNDP) official said Wednesday.

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, director and lead author of the UNDP's Human Development Report 2002, told Xinhua after the global launching of the report in the Philippine Presidential Palace Wednesday morning, that China's contribution to human development in the past decade is absolutely great.

"In fact, if you look at world poverty, if you did not include China, poverty has grown everywhere. But it is not like that because China has done very well in reducing the number of people living in absolute poverty in the last decade. You see that the progress of China has made so much difference to the state of global poverty," Fukuda-Parr said.

The annual report titled "Deepening democracy in a fragmented world" assessed the current situation of human development while calling for more participation and accountability not only in country-level governance but also in international organizations.

The report listed China as a good example of developing countries for it has not only achieved fast economic growth but made progress in expanding people's participation and accountability in social lives.

"The quality of political governance is becoming more democratic in China while achieving great improvement in social development progress," Fukuda-Parr told the participants at the launching ceremony when she explained that development and democracy are not conflict in developing countries.

By promoting the village-level elections since 1980s, the Chinese people has been given greater voice in formulation of national reform policies and programs. Much of the public service system is being professionalized, and there have been ambitious efforts to combat corruption, the report said.

While admitting different countries have different democracy due to the history and circumstance, Fukada-Parr stressed that "The world is very fragmented because the differences between the rich and poor countries, the powerful and less powerful countries are growing, and what we need is political order which can make the world more fair."

China can surely have its own kind of democracy and the world should respect it, she said.

"China is definitely a very impressive country whose role in Asia is growing. It is also a major, major factor in the future global economy and market," Fukuda-Parr emphasized.

"China is taking its own course in development and democracy. Many reforms have been taken place in the last decade in China. And I hope that China will continue to do as well in expanding thewell-being of the people," she said.

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