II. Bring About an All-Round Upsurge of the Socialist Economy

Of the various tasks for bringing about an all-round new situation, the most important one is to push forward the socialist modernization of China's economy. For this purpose, the Party has formulated the strategic objective, priorities and steps of our economic construction as well as a series of correct principles in a spirit of realism.

The general objective of China's economic construction for the two decades between 1981 and the end of this century is, while steadily working for more and better economic results, to quadruple the gross annual value of industrial and agricultural production - from 710 billion yuan in 1980 to 2,800 billion yuan or so in 2000. This will place China in the.front ranks of the countries of the world in terms of gross national income and the output of major industrial and agricultural products; it will represent an important advance in the modernization of her entire national economy; it will increase the income of her urban and rural population several times over; and the Chinese people will be comparatively well-off both materially and culturally. Although China's national income per capita will even then be relatively low, her economic strength and national defence capabilities will have grown considerably, compared with what they are today. Provided that we work hard and in a down-to-earth manner and bring the superiority of the socialist system into fuller play, we can definitely attain our grand strategic objective.

From an overall point of view, what is most important in our effort to realize this objective in economic growth is to properly solve the problems of agriculture, energy and transport and of education and science.

Agriculture is the foundation of the national economy, and provided it grows, we can handle the other problems more easily. At present, both labour productivity and the percentage of marketable products are rather low in our agriculture; our capacity for resisting natural calamities is still quite limited; and, in particular, the contradiction between the huge population and the insufficiency of arable land is becoming ever more acute. From now on, while firmly controlling the population growth, protecting all agricultural resources and maintaining the ecological balance, we must do better in agricultural capital construction, improve the conditions for agricultural production, practise scientific farming, wrest greater yields of grain and cash crops from limited acreage, and secure the all-round development of forestry, animal husbandry, sideline occupations and fishery in order to meet the needs of industrial expansion and of higher living standards for the people.

Energy shortage and the strain on transport are major checks on China's economic development at present. Growth in energy production has slowed down somewhat in the last few years, while waste remains extremely serious. Transport capacity lags far behind the increasing volume of freight, and postal and telecommunications facilities are outmoded. To ensure a fair rate of growth in the national economy, it is imperative to step up the exploitation of energy resources, economize drastically on energy consumption and at the same time strive hard to expand the transport and postal and telecommunications services.

The modernization of science and technology is a key link in our four modernizations. Today, many of our enterprises are backward in production techniques, operation and management; large numbers of workers and staff members lack the necessary scientific knowledge, general education and work skills; and there is an acute shortage of skilled workers, scientists and technicians. In the years to come, we must promote large-scale technical transformation in a planned way, popularize technical measures that have yielded good economic results, and actively introduce new techniques, equipment, technologies and materials. We must step up research in the applied sciences, lay more stress on research in the basic sciences and organize people from all relevant fields to tackle key problems in scientific research. We must improve our study and application of economics and scientific business management and continuously raise the level of economic planning and administration and of the operation and management of enterprises and institutions. And we must work vigorously to universalize primary education, strengthen secondary vocational education and higher education and develop educational undertakings of all types and at all levels in both urban and rural areas, including training classes for cadres, workers, staff members and peasants and literacy classes in order to train all kinds of specialists and raise the scientific and educational level of the whole nation.

In short, in the next 20 years we must keep a firm hold on agriculture, energy, transport, education and science as the basic links, the strategic priorities in China's economic growth. Effective solution of these problems on the basis of an overall balance in the national economy will lead to a fairly swift rise in the production of consumer goods, stimulate the development of industry as a whole and of production and construction in other fields and ensure a betterment of living standards.