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China
battles rich-poor gap
BEIJING - China's economy
is likely to be heading for another year of
galloping development, but how to make more
Chinese reap the benefits is still a challenge for
the government.
Think-tank economists,
researchers and President Hu Jintao have spoken of
their new-year expectations and concerns.
Powered by domestic economic development
and worldwide recovery, China's economy is
expected to see stable development this year after
a growth rate of 9.8% in 2005, Ou Xinqian, vice
minister of National Development and Reform
Commission, announced over the weekend.
The rate was a little higher than in 2003
and 2004, when growth of
9.5% was recorded. The year
2001 saw a rate of 7.5% and in 2002, 8.3% was
recorded.
The latest figure means China is
in another economic circle of fast development.
"The circle is likely to continue due to
vibrant buying, investment and foreign trade,"
said Zhang Liqun, a senior researcher at the State
Council Development Research Center, the central
government's think-tank.
At a recent
economic discussion, he said the rising number of
car and house purchases, the vigor of regrouped
state-owned enterprises and foreign investment and
trade will mean continuous progress in China's
economic development.
Pushed along by the
United States, China and India, world growth this
year is likely to continue, albeit at a slightly
slower rate than in 2005, said some experts.
Meanwhile, possible expansion in the Japanese
economy and the eurozone could also offer some
support for global momentum.
"China, in
turn, will benefit from world growth, which will
create more investment opportunities," said Bi
Jiyao, vice president of the Overseas Economy
Research Institute affiliated to the National
Development and Reform Commission.
Despite
rapid economic progress, growing inequality
between the rich and the poor, a very tough job
market, higher prices and a grim workplace safety
record have been troubling the government, said Li
Peilin, a senior sociologist with the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences.
Hu promised in
his new-year address that the government would
"make all of its people benefit from reform and
development" while maintaining rapid and efficient
economic growth.
The government has been
working hard on social harmony, pledging the
country will "put people first, foster a socialist
harmonious society and give top priority to
resolving urgent problems facing the overwhelming
majority of the people".
The government
has already announced that it will increase the
minimum living allowance for needy people, offer
free compulsory education in rural regions and
expand the network of rural cooperative medical
care.
All the measures show that
"fostering a harmonious society" is high on the
government's economic agenda, said the experts.
However, they said social problems that
have cropped up during robust economic development
and industrialization could not be solved
overnight.
A recent United Nations report
highlights the huge gap between rich and poor in a
China.
The China Human Development Report
2005 says China has lifted 250 million of its 1.3
billion citizens out of poverty in the past 25
years. But it urges policy changes to prevent poor
Chinese, mainly rural dwellers, from slipping
further behind the country's emerging middle and
wealthy classes.
China "has compressed 100
years of change into 20-plus years, and not
everything will fit", said Khalid Malik, UN
resident coordinator in China.
China's
urban-rural income gap was among the highest in
the world, Malik said, adding that public health
access in the Chinese countryside had fallen
dramatically.
By the UN's measures,
Shanghai residents enjoy a standard of living on
par with people in Portugal. Yet living standards
in Tibet, in remote southwestern China, are closer
to those in poor African countries.
China
is "plagued by imbalances in development", the UN
Development Program report says. Among the most
striking examples:
A Chinese city-dweller earns an average of
US$1,000 a year, compared with $300 a year for a
rural resident.
Urban dwellers live more than five years
longer on average than those in the countryside.
Literacy rates are more than 97% for adults in
major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and
Tianjin. In Tibet, only half of the population can
read and write. Nationwide, female illiteracy is
more than double the rate for men.
China's
most vulnerable are the 300 million to 400 million
living on the margins in rural areas - often
farmers whose land has been seized for development
- or those who have migrated to cities in search
of work, Malik said.
High income
inequality "leads to a sense of social inequity,
which unemployment and corruption aggravate",
warns the UN report, to which the Chinese
government contributed. "All these are major
factors in the deteriorating of social stability."
The report recommends that China set up a
social-security system for all workers and reform
a household-registration system that discriminates
against the 150 million rural workers who have
migrated to cities. Other recommendations include
loans for small entrepreneurs and creation of
home-care jobs to serve the elderly.
At the
other end of the scale, China's super-rich are
flourishing.
A June survey by the National
Bureau of Statistics indicates that the richest
10% of Chinese control 45% of the country's
wealth, while the poorest 10% control only 1.4%.
Policymakers in Beijing have said China
should strive to be a xiaokang - moderately
well-off society - by 2020.
(Asia
Pulse/XIC)
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