Approved by the 5th Plenum of the 15th CPC Central Committee last week, the proposal, in about 17,000 Chinese characters, has 16 subtitles:

-- Consolidating and strengthening the primary status of agriculture;

-- Speeding up restructuring, transformation and upgrading of the industrial sector;

-- Vigorously developing the service sector;

-- Accelerating construction of information infrastructure for national economic and social development;

-- Further enhancing infrastructure construction in such sectors as water conservancy, communications and energy;

-- Implementing the strategy of developing the western region to promote coordinated development among different regions;

-- Actively promoting urbanization in a reliable manner;

-- Promoting scientific and technological advancement and creation;

-- Tapping human resources and quickening the cause of education;

-- Enhancing management of population and resources, attaching importance to ecological construction and environmental protection;

-- Further deepening reform and improving the system of a socialist market economy;

-- Further opening up to the outside world and developing an opening-oriented economy;

-- Actively expanding employment and improving the social security system;

-- Improving the life of urban and rural residents;

-- Advancing socialist ethical and cultural progress;

-- Strengthening construction of the socialist democracy and legal system; The proposal says that starting from the new century, China will enter a new phase of building a well-to-do society and speeding up the socialist modernization drive in an all-round manner.

The reform and opening up over the past two decades have raised China's productivity to a new level, bringing an end to the shortage of commodities and evoking great changes in market supply and demand.

The system of a socialist market economy has been established with market systems playing an increasingly dominant role in distributing resources, the proposal says, adding that great changes have also taken place in the system that regulates economic development.

While the pattern of opening up in an all-round manner has been basically formed, the country's opening-oriented economy is witnessing rapid development with major changes having taken place in its external economic relations.

China has hit the first two strategic objectives in its modernization drive, achieving overall economic and social development and making the people live a fairly good life on the whole.

China has started to implement its third strategic development program, which will be a new milestone in the history of the nation's development. The next five to ten years will be an important period in China's economic and social development, for carrying out strategic readjustment in the economic structure, and for fine-tuning the socialist market economic system and expanding the opening-up.

Based on the long-term blueprint spelt out at the 15th National Congress of the CPC, the major objectives for economic and social development during the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005) are to: maintain a relatively fast pace of economic development, achieve marked progress in strategic economic restructuring and considerably improve economic growth quality and efficiency, in a bid to lay a solid foundation for doubling the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010, as compared to that of 2000; score major progress in establishing a modern enterprise system in state-owned enterprises and a relatively sound social security system, make substantial progress in improving the socialist market economic system, and participate in international cooperation and competition in a wider scope and to a deeper extent; widen employment channels, continuously raise the incomes of residents in urban and rural areas, considerably improve the material and cultural life, and strengthen protection of the eco-system and environment; speed up the development of science, technology and education in an effort to further improve people's quality, and make obvious headway in promoting the ethical and cultural progress and building the democratic and legal system.

Development is the key to solving all problems in China, the proposal says. It is imperative to maintain a relatively fast pace of development to realize the grand goal of modernization, to solve the contradictions and problems in economic and social life and to constantly raise people's living standards.

To materialize sustained, rapid and healthy development of the national economy, it is imperative to restructure the economy in a strategic manner with improving economic efficiency as the focus.

The problems of economic structure mainly lie in the irrational industrial structure, imbalanced development among different regions and the low level of urbanization, which are also major contradictions in the current economic development of China.

Only after the problems in economic structure are solved can domestic demand be stimulated, effective supply increased, and the overall quality of the national economy effectively improved, enabling China to gain the initiative against increasingly fierce international competition.

The promotion of economic development and restructuring should rely on the innovation of systems and science and technology. The proposal points out that it is imperative to deepen the reform, give full play to the role of market mechanisms, readjust national economic distribution and the structure of ownership to match production relations with the demands of the development of productive forces.

China should continue to implement the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and technology, quicken the pace of scientific and technological advance as well as the cultivation of talents to fully utilize the decisive role of science and technology as the first productive force. To formulate the 10th Five-Year Plan, development must be the theme, with economic restructuring as the masterstroke, reform, opening-up and scientific and technological progress as the driving forces, and enhanced living standards as the starting point, the proposal notes.

Comprehensive efforts should be made to assess the new situation after China enters the World Trade Organization. The plan should fully reflect the demands of a developing socialist market economy.

Facing the situation and tasks in the new stage of reform and opening up as well as modernization drive, it is imperative to adhere to the Party's basic theory, basic lines and basic guiding principles. It is also vital to further emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts, and correctly handle the relations among reform, development and stability so as to promote economic development and the overall social progress.

(Xinhua 10/18/2000)