------Source: China Daily

Source:

03-05-2006 10:05

Although it has maintained rapid economic growth in the past years, China cannot be pleased about its failure to accomplish some major targets by the 2005 deadline, which has revealed kinks in economic and social development.

According to the comprehensive 10th Five-Year (2001-05) Plan, the total amount of cultivated land should remain no less than 128 million hectares by the end of 2005.

But China registered 122.44 million hectares of cropland by 2004, and the figure continued to shrink in 2005, according to a survey by the Ministry of Land and Resources.

China has been suffering a chronic insufficiency of natural resources due to its huge population of 1.3 billion. The loss of arable land, mainly due to massive modern construction amid urbanization, has hampered economic development.

Greater efforts should be made to save cultivated land from construction projects and increase the capacity of cropland, said Yang Bangjie, deputy director of the Planning and Research Institute under the Ministry of Agriculture.

There must be joint efforts to save water resource and improve the efficiency of land use, said Yang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), before China's top advisory body opened its annual session in Beijing on Friday.

The second unfulfilled task was spending on research and scientific development, which should account for over 1.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2005, according to the blueprint of China's economic and social development.

But the investment was actually 1.3 per cent of GDP by 2005, reflecting how Chinese enterprises are not enthusiastic enough in innovation spending, said Guo Guoqing, a professor of commerce with the Beijing-based People's University, who is also a member of the CPPCC National Committee.

"It has been a custom for Chinese enterprises to import technologies for efficiency and low cost, but they will always lag behind their competitors by doing so," said Nan Cunhui, an entrepreneur and a deputy of the National People's Congress (NPC) - China's top legislature.

It is reasonable that they buy advanced technologies during the initial stage of market economy, but insufficient spending in technological innovation will never change China's passive position in world competition, Nan said.

China failed to realize its environment protection target over the past five years, which aimed to decrease the total volume of major pollutant discharge by 10 per cent from 2000.

China ranks among the world's most wasteful users of natural resources, according to a latest survey by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The study ranks China No 54 out of 59 countries surveyed, which shows China has not fundamentally broken away from its economic growth model that relies on the intensive use of natural resources and energies.

Official statistics show that the national energy consumption for every 10,000 yuan (US$1,250) output value equalled 1.55 tons of coal by the end of 2005, 27 per cent higher than the goal of the 10th Five-Year Plan.

Even in the country's most energy-efficient area of Shanghai, energy consumption for every 10,000 yuan (US$1,250) output value equals to 0.93 ton of coal, higher than that in the United States or Japan.

China is still fettered in the mode of mass investment and consumption but low efficiency, which means an extensive economic development.

The enrolment rate for high school should rise to approximately 60 per cent by 2005, according to the 10th Five-Year Plan. But preliminary statistics released by the Ministry of Education reveal the rate was about 52 per cent last year.

Great achievements have been made in expanding the primary and higher education across the country, but the government must pay more attention to the spread of the senior education, particularly the vocational education, said Duan Zhiai, an NPC deputy from a middle school in a small county of North China's Shanxi Province.

It is difficult for China to maintain sustainable development if the unbalanced economic and social development mode remains, CPPCC members and NPC deputies pointed out, as is also a consensus among the people.

 

Editor:Wang Ping