On Monday, March 14th, 2011, the Chinese government passed the Twelfth Five-Year Plan which seeks to: address rising inequality and create an environment for more sustainable growth by prioritizing more equitable wealth distribution, increased domestic consumption, and improved social infrastructure and social safety nets. The plan is representative of China’s efforts to rebalance its economy, shifting emphasis from investment toward consumption and from urban and coastal growth toward rural and inland development. The plan also continues to advocate objectives set out in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan to enhance environmental protection, accelerate the process of opening and reform, and emphasize Hong Kong’s role as a center of international finance.
The Twelfth Five-Year Plan was debated in mid-October 2010 at the
fifth plenary session
of the
17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
(CPC), the same session in which
Xi Jinping
was selected as Vice Chairman of the
Central Military Commission
. A full proposal for the plan was released following the plenum and is subject to approval by the
National People’s Congress
during its annual session to be convened in the first quarter of 2011.
The targets for the Twelfth Five-Year Plan are as follows: GDP to grow by about 8% in 2011, 7% annual growth of per capita income, to face the extremely complex situation for development in 2011, to implement prudent
monetary policy
in 2011, to intensify anti-corruption efforts in 2011, to accelerate economic restructuring in 2011, to spend 2.2% of GDP on research and development by 2015, to control population below 1.39 billion by 2015, to re-adjust income distribution to stop the yawning gap, and to firmly curb excessive rise of housing prices.
Following are the highlights of the draft of the plan, which was distributed to the media prior to the opening of the Fourth Session of the 11th NPC.
– Population will be controlled below 1.39 billion;
– Urbanization rate will reach 51.5 percent;
– Value-added output of emerging strategic industries will account for 8 percent of GDP;
– Foreign investment is welcomed in modern agriculture, high-tech and environment protection industries;
– Coastal regions to turn from “world’s factory” to hubs of R&D, high-end manufacturing and service sector;
– Nuclear power will be developed more efficiently under the precondition of ensuring safety;
– Construction of large-scale hydropower plants will gain momentum in southwest China;
– Length of high-speed railway will reach 45,000 km;
– Length of highway network will reach 83,000 km;
– A new airport will be built in Beijing;
– China to build 36 million affordable apartments for low-income people.