Ten bright spots in social, economic progress during the 10th Five-year Plan period

China takes a steady step towards building a well-off society during the Tenth Five Year Plan period (2001-05). Bright spots in social and economic progress have kept emerging. Here is a comparison between goals laid out in this national plan and actual results achieved.

Comprehensive national strength: at a new historical starting point

Plan: The annual economic growth averages at around 7 percent; the GDP will reach 12.5 trillion yuan by 2005.

During the Tenth Five-Year Plan period, China's economy will maintain an annual growth rate of 8.8 percent at average. Its GDP is expected to exceed 15 trillion yuan this year.

Plan: Keep steady growth of finance revenue; improve the proportion of finance revenue to GDP.

It is expected that China's finance revenue is to reach around three trillion yuan this year. By comparison, the finance revenue of 2000, the last year of the Ninth Five-Year Plan was only 1.34 trillion yuan. The proportion of finance revenue to GDP will rise from less than 15 percent in 2000 to around 20 percent this year.

Extended support to agriculture, rural areas and farmers

Plan: To push forward rural tax-for-fee reform, and alleviate farmers' burden; take all measures to boost farmers' incomes.

The agricultural taxes, which had lasted for more than 2,000 years, began to be phased out during the Tenth Five Year Plan. The Government Work Report 2004 set out a goal to cut all agricultural taxes in five years. The report of 2005 stated that China will realize the goal in 2006.

At present the number of provinces that exempt the agricultural taxes has increased from 8 in 2004 to 28. In the first three quarters this year, Chinese farmers' per-capita tax burden fell nearly 90 percent. The total tax cut will amount to 22 billion yuan nationwide this year.

The Tenth Five-Year Plan: Give emphasis to compulsory education in impoverished areas; improve basic medical conditions for farmers.

Since 2001, China began to earmark funds from central finance to provide needy students from rural families with free textbooks. From this year, textbook fees and miscellaneous fees of impoverished students in state key poverty alleviation counties will be written off. Resident students will be receiving subsidies, too. By 2007 the policy will be adopted by rural regions nationwide.

A total of 163 million farmers have joined the new rural cooperative medical system which started from the second half of 2003. However, more time and inputs are needed to change the overall conditions in rural areas.

More social security in people's life

Plan: it lays out an increased urban employment of 40 million people, with urban registered unemployment rate kept around 5 percent and social security system improved.

China's urban employment has been increasing annually during the five years. From 2001 to last October, an increased urban employment of more than 43 million people is reported, with the registration rate kept under 5 percent.

By the end of last September, the national old-age insurance, medical insurance and unemployment insurance covered 170 million, 130 million and 105 million people respectively.

Plan: per capita urban housing space to reach 22 square meters.

China's per capita urban housing space was 20.8 square meters in 2001, but it reached 25 square meters last year, almost an increase of 1 square meter per year.

Plan: to reach a highway mileage of 1.6 million kilometers, including 25,000 kilometers expressway. The number of telephone users will reach 500 million.

The Tenth Five-year Plan period marks the fastest developing in the construction of transportation infrastructure. It is expected that by the end of the Period the national total highway mileage will reach 1.9 million kilometers, including nearly 40,000 kilometers expressway. Railway tracks were for the first time laid in Tibet.

During this period China successfully built a world-class telecommunication network, with the scale of both fixed and mobile lines leaping into world first place.

By the end of last October, the number of Chinese telephone users had exceeded 731 million, the fixed-line coverage reached 26.6 sets per hundred people, and that for mobile line reached 29.1 sets per hundred people. Among its more than 100 million Internet users, more than half got access to the Net via broad band.

Reform and opening up: laying a foundation for long-term development

Plan: introduce competition and accelerate system reform in monopolized sectors

A breakthrough has been made during this period in reforms in monopolized sectors. Successful practice both at home and abroad told us that long-term monopoly can only hinder economic advancement and only by relying on effective, full competition can we achieve long-term and sustained prosperity.

Plan: to standardize and develop the securities market; eligible state-owned commercial banks can be transformed into state-controlled joint-stock companies.

The long-suspended split share reform entered a key stage this year.

On October 27, China Construction Bank successfully listed in Hong Kong, being the first listing of a state-owned bank. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China are also busily preparing for getting listed.

Plan: to basically form an all-round opening up pattern, to further expand the scale of foreign trade and utilization of foreign fund, with their structure optimized and quality raised.

China formally joined the World Trade Organization in the first year of the Tenth Five-year plan, with more and more sectors and industries opened to the outside world. It is estimated that an accumulative foreign fund of 270 billion US dollars are used during the five years. The total import/export volume will exceed 1.38 trillion US dollars, which was only 474.3 billion dollars in 2000.

China's opening up not only attracted foreign fund but brought in internationally advanced technology and managerial expertise; its foreign trade drove economic growth both at home and abroad.

By People's Daily Online