Esteemed Deputies,
Let me now brief you on the main targets, tasks, and measures for the period of the 13th Five-Year Plan from 2016 through 2020.
On the basis of the CPC Central Committee Recommendations for the 13th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, the State Council has drawn up the draft of the 13th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development and submitted it to this session for your review and approval.
The draft, centering on the goal of finishing building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and designed to address serious issues such as unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable development, stresses the need to promote innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared development. It proposes the main targets and tasks for economic and social development over the next five years as well as development policies, initiatives, and projects. The following are the six areas highlighted in the draft.
-- We should work to maintain a medium-high rate of growth and promote the development of industries toward the medium-high end.
To finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and double the 2010 GDP and per capita personal income by 2020, the economy needs to grow at an average annual rate of at least 6.5% during this five-year period. To that end, we will move faster to improve or upgrade the structure of industry and launch initiatives that use advanced technologies and can drive industrial development. Our goal is that by 2020, advanced manufacturing, modern services, and strategic emerging industries as a proportion of GDP will have risen significantly and that per capita labor productivity will have risen from 87,000 yuan to over 120,000 yuan. By that time, China's aggregate economic output should have exceeded 90 trillion yuan, and the quality and efficacy of development should have significantly improved. For a developing country like China with such a large population, this will be a truly remarkable achievement.
-- We should ensure that innovation better drives and energizes development.
Innovation is the primary driving force for development and must occupy a central place in China's development strategy, which is why we must implement a strategy of innovation-driven development. We should launch new national science and technology programs, build first-class national science centers and technological innovation hubs, help develop internationally competitive high-innovation enterprises, and establish pilot reform zones for all-round innovation. We should make consistent efforts to encourage the public to start businesses and make innovations. We should promote the extensive application of big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things. We need to move faster to transform China into a manufacturer of advanced and quality products and a country that is strong on intellectual property rights. We should strive to achieve major breakthroughs in basic research, applied research, and research in strategic and frontier fields by 2020. China's investment in research and development is expected to reach 2.5% of GDP, and the contribution of scientific and technological advances toward economic growth should come to reach 60%. Fulfilling these objectives will turn China into an innovative and talent-rich country.
-- We should make progress in new urbanization and agricultural modernization as well as in balancing development between urban and rural areas and between regions.
Narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas and between regions is not only a key part of economic structural adjustment; it is also crucial for unleashing developmental potential. We should advance the new, people-centered urbanization. This will mean granting urban residency to around 100 million people with rural household registration living in urban areas and other permanent urban residents, completing the rebuilding of both rundown areas and "villages" in cities involving about 100 million people, and enabling around 100 million rural residents to live in local towns and cities in the central and western regions. By 2020, permanent urban residents should account for 60% of China's population, and 45% of the Chinese people should be registered as permanent urban residents.
We should launch initiatives to develop water conservancy in agriculture, farming machinery, and the modern seed industry, encourage appropriately scaled-up agricultural operations, and promote regional distribution, standardized production, and commercial agricultural services. By 2020, the supply, quality, and safety of food crops and other major agricultural products should be better ensured, notable headway should have been made in modernizing agriculture, and fresh progress should have been made in developing the new countryside.
Guided by the general strategy for regional development, we should pursue the Three Initiatives to form north-south and east-west intersecting economic belts along the coastline, the Yangtze River, and major transportation routes, and foster new growth poles and city clusters that facilitate the development of surrounding areas. We should also expand major infrastructure projects, with the aim of increasing the length of high-speed railways in service to 30,000 kilometers and linking more than 80% of big cities in China with high-speed railways, building or upgrading around 30,000 kilometers of expressways, and achieving full coverage of access to broadband networks in both urban and rural areas.
Note:
* To finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the time the CPC celebrates its centenary in 2021 and to turn the People's Republic of China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious by the time it celebrates its centenary in 2049.
