A NEW LOOK: Haihe River, the mother river of Tianjin Municipality, has been remade into a beautiful scenic spot in the city (LIU HAIFENG)

Second, China will strive to be an innovation-oriented country.

Great importance will be placed on innovation, and China will invest heavily in an array of technologies to make major breakthroughs, including information, green energy, aerospace and maritime technology.

Through government support and investment, China will speed up the development of its national innovation system, with special assistance given to scientific research for technologies that will benefit the public servcie. A research fund will also be appropriated for different fields of science and technology.

China will also build up a technological innovation system led by enterprises and guided by the market—one that integrates production and research. The enterprises' role as the main body of innovation will be strengthened. Companies, scientific research institutes and universities will be encouraged to form joint entities to spur innovation. Intellectual property rights will also be promoted and perfected.

All this will be accomplished with a new, innovative talent pool that will need to be trained and recruited. These top-notch talents will be international visionaries. In the meantime, China will attract a large number of talents from abroad, as well as Chinese students studying overseas to come back to serve the country.

China will heavily promote green innovation and join other countries to stage a new green industrial revolution to cope with global climate change.

Third, China will take further steps in its economic opening up.

The traditional way of engaging in foreign trade will be changed, and China will optimize its export structure. China will expand imports of advanced technology, key equipment and spare parts, as well as energy and raw materials unavailable within the country.

China will strive to stabilize foreign countries' demand for Chinese products and support the foreign trade market, expand the market for traditional industries, actively foster new comparative advantages to participate in globalization, expand investment in overseas markets and encourage labor exports. All kinds of companies will be encouraged to go out and compete internationally to spur exports.

China will take an active role in the global economic integration. Its domestic regional planning will be connected with international regional economic cooperation. China will develop bilateral and multilateral economic and trade cooperation with all nations, actively participate in the promulgation of international trade and investment rules and regulations, strive to build new international economic order, implement free trade zone policies, and strengthen regional cooperation.

China will also work to reduce international economic risks, with focus on reducing export risks, perfecting the export credit insurance policy and expanding its coverage, while alleviating risks associated with foreign reserves. China will actively join international players to prevent risks in the global financial system, expand cross-border currency exchange coverage, and strive to promote the diversification of international reserve currencies.

Fourth, China will promote coordinated regional development.

All regions in China will see new rounds of development, especially the western region. China will revitalize its northeast industrial bases, stimulate the rise of the central part of the country and provide incentive for the eastern region so as to form a coordinated regional development pattern that is mutually beneficial with different characteristics.

Fifth, urban and rural integration will be promoted.

China will actively develop modern agriculture, ensure national food security and the effective supply of agricultural products. More central budget will cover rural areas to build up new socialist countryside. Reform of urban-rural integration will speed up.

What development features will China have during the 12th Five-Year Plan period?

China will still be in the primary stage of socialism during the 12th Five-Year Plan period. The principal contradiction in our society is still one between the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people and the backwardness of social production. But some new features are emerging.

First, China will join the global middle-income grouping. From the perspective of the development level, China will ascend into the middle-income group from the lower middle-income one; from the perspective of purchasing power parity, the per-capita GDP will surpass the average level of the world and exceed the level of West European countries in the 1960s and 1970s.

Second, China will enter a high level of human development. The human development index (HDI) is a comprehensive index, including three aspects—economy, health and education. In 2008, China's HDI was 0.781, ranking 81st out of 177 countries. China's HDI is expected to reach 0.84 by 2015, entering a high level of human development (with HDI exceeding 0.8), ranking within the top 70 of the world.

Third, China will become an affluent, better-off society. The Engel coefficient, which gauges the standard of living of a country, will sink to around 37 percent in rural areas by 2015 from 43.7 percent in 2008, meaning the countryside will transform from a relatively comfortable society to an affluent one. In urban areas, the Engel coefficient will drop to 31 percent by 2015 from 37.9 percent in 2008, meaning the urban residents will also become more affluent.

Fourth, China will become an aging society with a booming population of younger people. China will face a daunting challenge of unsustainable population development as it will enter an aging society before it can get rich. In 2015, the labor force will peak at 1 billion with senior citizens above 65 years old accounting for 9.4 percent of the population. In 2010, on average, 9.1 persons of the labor force support one senior citizen, but by 2015, the ratio will be changed into 7.6:1.