China a leader in sustainability after reform

This year marks 40 years of China's reform and opening-up. Over the four decades, China's growth and progress has been remarkable. In 1978, China's economy was smaller than that of the Netherlands, now it is the world's second-largest. Rural and urban per capita incomes have both risen more than hundredfold over this period. Indeed, over the last couple decades, astonishing economic growth has become synonymous with China.

This growth has led to sweeping improvements in the lives of ordinary Chinese people. Since 1978, when economic reforms began with steps to boost rural incomes through market-based incentives for farmers, more than 800 million Chinese citizens have been lifted out of poverty. Life expectancy has increased by 10 years to reach levels comparable to many advanced economies. China is the only country to have progressed from the low to high category on the human development index since the United Nations Development Programme introduced in 1990.

China's physical transformation in these years has also been dramatic. The country is now linked by world class highways, high-speed railways, power transmission and ICT networks, thriving markets in goods and services across China's large area. Financial services, including microfinance, often internet or phone-based, have reached even the most remote parts of the country.