Population has always been an extremely important issue in China's economic and social development. Family planning is a basic policy of our state. We must do our utmost to keep our population within 1.2 billion by the end of this century. The total number of births is now at its peak. Excessive population growth will not only adversely affect the increase of percapita income but also cause serious difficulties in food supply, housing, education and employment, and it may even disrupt social stability. Consequently, we must never slacken our effort in family planning, especially in the rural areas. We must conduct intensive and meticulous ideological education among the peasants. Provided that we do our work well, we can succeed in bringing our population under control.

In order to realize our objective for the next two decades, we must take the following two steps in our strategic planning: in the first decade, aim mainly at laying a solid foundation, accumulating strength and creating the necessary conditions; and in the second, usher in a new period of vigorous economic development. This is a major policy decision taken by the Central Committee after a comprehensive analysis of the present conditions of China's economy and the trend of its growth.

Our national economy has grown steadily even in the past few years of readjustment, and the achievement is quite impressive. In many fields, however, the economic results have been far from satisfactory, and there has been appalling waste in production, construction and circulation. We have yet to equal our best past records in the materials expended in per unit products, in the profit rate of industrial enterprises, in the construction time for large and medium-sized projects and in the turnover rate of circulating funds in industrial and commercial enterprises. Apart from some objective factors not subject to comparison, the main causes for this are the "Left" mistakes of the past, which resulted in blind proliferation of enterprises, an irrational economic structure, defective systems of economic administration and distribution, chaotic operation and management and backward production techniques. Things started to pick up a little in 1982, with the stress laid on better economic results. Nevertheless, it is impossible in a brief space to solve all such problems which have piled up over a long period. We have to bear this basic fact in mind when drawing up the strategic plan for China's economic development.

In the period of the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1981-85), we must continue unswervingly to carry out the principles of readjustment, restructuring, consolidation and improvement, practise strict economy, combat waste and focus all economic work on the attainment of better economic results. We must devote our main efforts to readjusting the economic structure in various fields, streamlining, reorganizing and merging the existing enterprises and carrying out technical transformation in selected enterprises. At the same time, we must consolidate and perfect the initial reform in the system of economic administration and work out at an early date the overall plan for reform and the measures for its implementation. During the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1986-90), we shall carry out the technical transformation of enterprises on an extensive scale and gradually reform the system of economic administration, in addition to completing the rationalization of the organizational structure of enterprises and the economic structure in various fields. We must also undertake a series of necessary capital construction projects in the energy, transport and some other fields, and the concentrated solution of a number of major scientific and technological problems in the 1980s. Therefore, it will not be possible for the national economy to develop very fast in this decade. But if we complete the above tasks, we can solve the problems left over from the past and build a relatively solid basis for economic growth in the decade to follow. The 1990s will witness an all-round upsurge in China's economy which will definitely grow at a much faster rate than in the 1980s. If we publicize and explain this strategic plan adequately to the people, they will see the bright future more clearly and be inspired to work with greater drive to usher in the new period of vigorous economic growth.

In the five years between this Party congress and the next, we shall complete the Sixth Five-Year Plan and start on the Seventh. To strive for a fundamental turn for the better in China's financial and economic situation in this period means that we must, under the strategic plan outlined above, achieve significantly better economic results, a steady basic balance in finance and credit and basic stability in commodity prices. Clearly, it is of paramount importance to China's long-term economic development that we do our economic work well in these five years.