China aims to maintain its stable, fast economic growth in the coming 2006-10 period, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CPC) said Tuesday, stressing social harmony in the pursuit of development.

The Party sets a target for China's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) to double from the year 2000 to 2010 in its Proposal for Formulating the 11th Five-Year Program (2006-10) for National Economic and Social Development, which was approved at a just-closed plenary session of the Party's central committee.

Asia's second biggest economy, driven by strong investment and exports, expanded a robust 9.5 percent in the first six months this year and is widely perceived to see only a slight slowdown in2006.

Nonetheless, China's per capita GDP has only jumped to the 1,000-US dollar level, and, the economy is also beleaguered by such problems as heated investment in certain industries -- which triggered the latest round of macro-control over the past year -- as well as not strong enough consumption, increasing trade disputes and outside pressure demanding currency appreciation, analysts say.

A communique issued after the CPC session, attended by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, said China's growth target should be achieved on the back of "optimized structures, higher efficiency and lower costs".

Energy costs for the same amount of GDP, for instance, should be reduced roughly 20 percent in the coming five years, it said.

The communique emphasized China should maintain basically balanced international payment, but did not mention any further reforms of the renminbi exchange rate. Some developed countries including the United States have been pushing China to raise the value of its currency in an effort they said to narrow trade deficits with China.

Typically, it reiterated economic growth and social progress should be engineered with a "scientific concept of development", aterm frequently used by top Chinese leaders indicating the shift of the government's development philosophy from growth-centered to people-centered.

The communique called for "properly handling the people's internal contradictions and earnestly solving the most realistic and direct interest problems that the broad masses are mostly concerned about."

Job creation should be put on a higher agenda in the course of economic and social development, it stressed. The communique said efforts should be exerted to "ease the trend of a widening income gap among different regions and a part of social members."

Chinese farmers' earnings lag behind city residents not only inamount, but in growth rate -- being 7.7 percent for city dwellers and 6.8 percent for rural people last year, official figures show.

Commenting on the communique, Ding Yuanzhu, an economist with the National Development and Reform Commission, told Xinhua that he believes the top leadership is treating the building of harmonious society as a "long-term, important" target.

(Xinhua News Agency October 12, 2005)