China sets sights on prosperity
Print Edition
PRESIDENT Xi Jinping said yesterday that China needs to achieve economic growth of at least 6.5 percent in the coming years to become “moderately prosperous,” while the Communist Party announced plans to allow the yuan to trade freely by 2020.
The statements were made following a high-level planning meeting last week at which Party leaders promised to make the world’s second-largest economy more productive and to raise living standards.
Growth of “no less than 6.5 percent” is required to achieve the Party’s goal of doubling the economy’s size by 2020 from its 2010 level, Xi said.
His comment was the latest indication the Party might reduce its official growth target, which has been fixed at 7 percent since 2011. Last year’s actual figure was 7.4 percent, while this year it is expected to come in just below 7 percent.
Xi made the remarks while addressing the Fifth Plenum of 18th CPC Central Committee on the Party’s proposals for China’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20).
To double its GDP and boost the per capita incomes of both rural and urban residents, the government must achieve medium-to-high growth.
“Maintaining a medium-high level of growth is conducive to improving people’s lives so they can benefit from living in a moderately prosperous society,” Xi said.
“In the next five years, China’s development should not just be focused on growth pace, but also growth volume, and, more importantly, growth quality,” he said.
China must maintain economic growth while at the same time transform its development pattern, optimize its economic structure, improve the environment and raise development quality and efficiency, the president said.
According to the proposal, China will coordinate economic indicators during the next five years to make development more balanced, inclusive and sustainable.
The contribution of the service sector to GDP will continue to rise, while domestic consumption will play a much larger role as China aims to become an innovation-driven nation with a more talented workforce.
It will take time to eliminate excessive production capacity, optimize economic structure and realize innovation-driven development, Xi said.
As a result, it will not be easy to maintain relatively fast growth, he said.
China’s economy grew by 6.9 percent in the third quarter of this year, its slowest quarterly rate in six years.
Liu Yuanchun, deputy director of the National Academy of Development and Strategy at Renmin University, said that if effective measures are taken, China can maintain growth of about 7 percent over the next five years.
Chi Fulin, director of the China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development, said the 6.5 percent bottom line allows leeway for ensuring sustainable growth.
Also yesterday, the Party said its leaders agreed last week to make the yuan a “freely tradable and freely usable currency” by the end of the next five-year development plan in 2020.
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