Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee
China aims to achieve "major breakthroughs" in economic restructuring and will take reform as "a powerful driving force" to accelerate the transformation of its economic development pattern. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) made its intentions clear after approving a blueprint for the next five years on its fifth plenary session, which ended on October 18.
Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a work report at the four-day session of the 17th CPC Central Committee.
The plenum examined and approved proposals for formulating the development plan for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), a roadmap for the development of the country in the next five years, and appointed Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, 57, as vice chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission.
The next five years are a critical stage for China to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, said the communique issued at the close of the plenum.
In setting the plan, the CPC "must adapt to the changes of domestic and international situations and comply with the people's new expectations of living better lives," said the communique.
It said the 12th Five-Year Plan period was a time of difficult issues for deepening the reform and opening-up process and accelerating the transformation of the nation's economic development pattern.
Zhang Ping, an economist from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said on October 19 that the most daunting international challenges for China at the inception of the 12th Five-Year Plan will be the slow global economic recovery, international hot money flooding China and the growing pressure on China to negotiate with other countries over its economic policies due to the size of its economy.
Zhang said that domestically China should be cautious to avoid falling into the "middle-income trap" over the next five years. The "middle-income trap," a concept coined by the World Bank, is that the strategies that allow countries to grow from low income to middle income are not enough to get them to high income. Historically, few countries have mastered the complex technical, social and political challenges that arise, according to the World Bank.
(NO. 43 OCTOBER 28, 2010)
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