Mobilising rural population key to China’s success
IN CHINA over 40 000 new businesses open every day, adding 30 million jobs to an economy which, despite the global economic downturn, will grow by at least 6.7% this year.
KwaZulu-Natal’s Consul-General for China, Wang Jianzhou, told guests at the launch of the Brics Business Schools Association in Durban last week that opening its economy and mobilising its rural population were the keys to the country’s economic success.
China is the second biggest GDP economy in the world after the United States, and is predicted to become the largest economy by 2030. The country is the largest exporter of goods in the world. India is the largest exporter of services and Brazil the largest exporter of raw materials.
In the 1970s China was considered one of the poorest countries, with 88% of its 1.3 billion people living below the poverty threshold. (The global poverty threshold is measured as those earning less than R70 a day).
“We were like the Soviet Union where everything was controlled very tightly by the central government. In 1979 we opened up our country. We mobilised the people to bring out all their creativity, particularly those in the countryside. Our reform started in the rural areas.
“We do things in a very efficient way. We have strong leadership. The people are prepared to work very hard for a better life. We have invested in education and training and skills. We introduced mass entrepreneurship by starting out with small family businesses. People were not waiting for handouts from the government,” he said.
The Chinese economy has grown at an average of 10% a year since 1979 and has met all the millennium development goals to alleviate poverty. According to Jianzhou the workforce is now 900 million strong of which 170 million have tertiary qualifications. But while China’s “spending” middle class is booming, the country is also one of the most polluted in the world as a direct result of its bloated economic growth.
“The high speed growth for over 30 years has come at a high cost to the environment. We believe that growth at 7% every year is now more sustainable in terms of the environmental impact,” he said.
In a World Bank report China’s five year plan (2016-2020) was designed to “forcefully” address the issue with targets set to reduce pollution and increase energy efficiency and focus on the “quality” of the economic growth.
Jianzhou can be contacted at wang_jianzhou@mfa.gov.cn