China's finance minister says to spend more on education in 2007

China is likely to spend more than 3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) for the development of education in 2007, Finance Minister Jin Renqing said Friday.

"The Finance Ministry will work to hit this target along with the growth of the country's financial strength," Jin told a press conference on the sidelines of the parliament's annual session.

China's GDP last year jumped 10.7 percent to 20.94 trillion yuan, and the growth rate is projected to be about 8 percent this year, Premier Wen Jiabao said in his government work report at the opening of the session on Monday.

Last year, China spent 475.27 billion yuan on education, accounting for 2.86 percent of the country's total GDP, Jin said.

Jin said China's annual educational spending accounts for 15 percent of its total financial expenditure on average, which is close to international level.

But the country's total financial expenditure only takes up 19 percent of its GDP, which is far less than that in developed countries, he said.

"As China's total financial expenditure increases, the percentage of educational spending in the GDP will also grow," Jin told reporters.

The Chinese government has promised to raise the proportion of annual education spending to 4 percent of the GDP, according to the Guidelines for the 11th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development.

In the government work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao to the current parliamentary session, Wen promised that a total of 85.85 billion yuan (11 billion U.S. dollars) will be allocated to education from the central budget this year, an increase of 41.7 percent over the previous year. Local governments were also required to raise educational budget.

Source: Xinhua