Development Target Challenges

During the reporters spoke to NPC deputies and CPPCC National Committee members to hear their thoughts on how to achieve national development targets. Edited excerpts follow:

Li Yining, CPPCC National Committee member and renowned economist: The Report on the Work of the Government sets this year’s projected GDP growth at around 6.5 percent, adding that we will strive to achieve better results. Efficiency is the most important thing in economics, and it rests on two foundations. The first is materials and technology, as well as the number of factories, equipment, the quantity and quality of raw materials and the capacity of the labor force. Materials and technology are the guarantee for normal growth. But efficiency has another foundation, that is, the moral basis. For example, people’s sense of identity is a huge force. People’s feeling of being in the same boat means cohesion and a common sense of crisis. Moral power is important for it can yield unexpected results, which has been demonstrated in previous efforts to prevent and control natural disasters. Whether we can achieve an economic growth rate higher than 6.5 percent depends on whether we can make breakthroughs in the foundations of efficiency.

Major General Chen Zhou, NPC deputy and Senior Researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences, People’s Liberation Army: China’s defense spending is compatible with our economic conditions and national defense requirements and is very appropriate and reasonable. The defense budget will be used to support national defense and military reforms as well as military equipment upgrading. A large proportion will go to improving training and living conditions of local-level troops and cultivating high-caliber military officers. The spending will also be used to support the integration of military and civilian [technologies]. China’s growing global status and influence requires it to shoulder more international responsibilities and obligations, and the military is indispensable for doing this. China has taken part in UN peacekeeping operations since 1990. The country has also participated in security cooperation in anti-terrorism work and humanitarian aid. The Chinese military will better fulfill its international obligations to make a greater contribution to world peace and development.

Chen Xiwen, Deputy Director of the Committee for Economic Affairs of the CPPCC National Committee: To push forward agricultural supply-side reform, the most important thing is to carry out innovation in two ways. First, promoting innovation in agricultural science and technology. New technology should be adopted, from seed breeding to plant cultivation and livestock feeding, as well as in subsequent product processing, storage and transportation, to achieve higher efficiency. Second, promoting innovation in the agricultural management system. Since China has a large population and relatively limited farmland, the overall scale of agricultural production is small, especially that of land-intensive products such as grain, cotton and oil crops. In the short term, the relatively small scale and low efficiency of China’s agricultural production cannot be changed. However, this can be remedied to a certain extent through innovation in the agricultural management system.