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Future growth mapped out
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PREMIER Zhu Rongji said China must accelerate reforms to prepare for looming WTO entry and double the size of its economy by 2010, as he unveiled a new five-year economic blueprint on Monday.
The bulk of Zhu's broad-brush, 90-minute speech was devoted to the economy and the 2001-5 five-year plan which is set to dominate the 11-day session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament.
Growth rate set
Zhu told the NPC that the government would aim for annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth of around seven per cent in the 2001-5 period.
For the short term, China would continue heavy state infrastructure spending and try to spur consumption, Zhu said.
“In the near future, we will continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy to increase investment and stimulate consumption,'' he said.
Social security
In the speech that outlines a long modernization plan, Zhu also pledged to create jobs for urban workers made redundant by wrenching State sector reforms and improve the living standards of China's 900 million rural population.
The five-year plan sets the goal of keeping urban unemployment levels under five per cent — a task which would require creating 40 million jobs for new urban jobless and 40 million places for people made redundant in the farm sector.
Western development
On the issue of developing the western region, Zhu said China should focus on a number of major projects of strategic significance, such as the transmission of natural gas and electricity from western to eastern regions and the planned Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
SOE reform
In the coming five years, China will further deepen reform of State-owned enterprises and overhaul and regulate market order, he said, adding that further opening up is needed in light of economic globalization.
Zhu said that China should continue to implement the strategy of sustainable development, improve democracy and the legal system.(SD-Xinhua)
Key five-year targets
● Annual GDP growth of seven per cent
● Income for urban and rural residents will rise by five per cent a year.
● By 2005, urban residents will have a per capita housing space of 22 square metres.
● Registered urban unemployment rate will be kept no higher than five per cent.
● Population growth kept under 0.9 per cent.
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