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China are clearly aware that there are still many difficulties
and problems in China's economic and social development that we
cannot afford to ignore, the top legislature was told Saturday.
Ma Kai, minister in charge of the State Development and Reform
Commission, made the remarks in his report to the legislature on
the implementation of the 2003 Plan for National Economic and
Social Development and on the 2004 Draft Plan for National Economic
and Social Development.
"Some longstanding, deep-rooted problems have yet to be solved,
and there are still structural barriers holding back economic and
social development," he said.
Moreover, he added, there are new circumstances and problems
affecting the operation of the economy.
Farmers have difficulty increasing their incomes and grain
production has dropped considerably, as the increase in per capita
net income for the rural population in 2003 was 0.5 percentage
points lower than in 2002, he said.
The problem of indiscriminate expropriation of arable land is
serious, and grain output for 2003 decreased by 26.4 billion
kilograms year-on-year, said the minister.
The problem of unemployment remains serious as there were
about14 million laid-off workers and unemployed people in cities
and towns, and approximately 10 million new urban residents are
expected to enter the labor force this year, he said.
In addition, large numbers of surplus rural laborers still need
to shift to non-agricultural industries and urban areas.
He noted that there is a wide income gap among some members of
society, and in both urban and rural areas many low-income people
lead a fairly difficult life.
The minister said the country's economic structure is still
irrational, and too much of its economic growth is based on
extensive production, and the problems of haphazard investment and
low-level, redundant expansion are worsening in some industries and
localities, resulting in excess energy consumption, serious waste
of resources and environmental pollution.
He added that economic and social development remains imbalanced
in China as the public health service system is far from sound and
the situation that rural education remains weak as a whole requires
fundamental changes.
The order of the market economy, he noted, remains somewhat
chaotic.
"We urgently need to improve the social credit system. Major
industrial accidents occur frequently. We need to take a long-term
perspective rooted in the present and solve these problems through
reform and development," Ma said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2004)
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