Balanced social progress is more important than a high economic growth rate for China, an article in the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily said. An excerpt follows:

China has long been in a fever to pursue rapid economic growth. Many take it for granted that an economic boom will automatically propel development in all areas of society.

Although such a belief has motivated China's spectacular economic growth in recent years, it has also created some thorny problems such as unemployment, the widening income gap and inadequate social welfare services.

A matter of particular concern is that the imbalance in living standards between cities and rural areas has deepened in the wake of the economic reform and opening drive over the past two and a half decades.

Official statistics indicate the per capita income in the affluent eastern region was 2.15 times that in the northwestern countryside in 2000, compared to a maximum of 1.68 times in 1978.

The one-side emphasis on economic growth has also led to deterioration of the ecological system.

The country's desert area has been expanding at a rate of 2,460 square kilometres per year since the early 1990s, threatening the livelihood of about 400 million people, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

As time goes by, the results of lopsided development will magnify and bring increasing harm to China's fundamental economic and social development.

If the short-sighted growth-first strategy cannot be changed in a reasonable length of time, China will gradually lose her development dynamism, and may even suffer social unrest.

The only solution is to introduce a balanced development mode to replace the old, outdated approach.

The sooner the transition is made, the better off the country will be.

Worthy of note is the fact that, the Third Plenum of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which closed on Tuesday, has included the issue of balanced social development within its strategic adjustments.

The move will have far-reaching implications for China's sustainable development and people's livelihood as well.

(China Daily HK Edition October 16, 2003)