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People's Daily Online>>China Politics

China to quicken reform and invest in innovation

By Wang Yanlin (Shanghai Daily)

08:24, March 19, 2012

CHINA is to accelerate economic reform in a wide range of aspects and increase spending in research and development to encourage innovation, Vice Premier Li Keqiang said yesterday at the China Development Forum in Beijing.

"China has entered a critical period in its economic restructuring and the reforms can't be delayed," Li said at the forum attended by top government officials, the head of the International Monetary Fund and business leaders.

"Reforms have reached a tough stage. But we should further push forward market-based changes because they serve as a foundation to sustain China's economic growth," Li said.

He said the country would deepen reform in the areas of tax, finance, prices, business and income distribution and seek breakthroughs in key areas to let market forces play a bigger role in the allocation of resources.

To sustain China's growth against a stumbling global economy, Li said that the country would adopt policies which were targeted, flexible and forward-looking, and pump 1 trillion yuan (US$158 billion), or more than 2 percent of China's economic output, into research and development this year to encourage innovation.

"Innovation in technology, management and products is crucial to propel economic restructuring and updating," Li said. "The government will vigorously push forward innovation, and turn China's large population into a rich source of skilled professionals."

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（Editor：王莉莉）

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PD User at 2012-03-21124.169.25.*: Good comment, we see in the west the gap between rich and poor increasing almost daily due to the almost unparalled greed of the finacially and politcally powerful. Its something Chinese leaders should be mindful of if they dont want China to head down the same path.Jack
Fred Jansohn at 2012-03-21202.129.80.*: It"s been said before that, triggered by China"s "opening-up" and the adoption of a market economy with Chinese characteristics, the upside of China"s miraculous growth has lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of dire, if not absolute, poverty. It’s also true to say that never before in the relatively short history of the Chinese Communist Party, have we seen such high levels of inequality in access to essential services, the unequal distribution of property and wealth; and constraints on spending power because of rising prices, unrealistically low wages, and the lack of a fully developed social security net. Ironically, it was for the achievement of all of the latter goals that the Party was formed and fought. Today’s China is a mighty economic behemoth, as much the beneficiary as the victim of the phenomenon of the opening-up begun during the late 1970s-early 80s under the far-sighted stewardship of Deng Xiaoping. But not unlike First World developed (capitalist) countries China now consists in a population boasting a small percentage of extremely wealthy, on the one hand and, on the other, a majority that live in relative or comparative poverty. While today’s poverty-stricken might have been considered well off by those that lived during earlier generations, the challenge that lies ahead for China (and indeed for other countries around the world) is to now lift these into more affluent lifestyles as befits a nation carrying the mantle of world’s second largest economy.