(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-11-15 07:11

China will focus on sustainable economic development instead of concentrating just on economic growth numbers, says a signed article in the overseas edition of People's Daily. The following is an excerpt:

"The transfer of the economic growth mode," a common term we used to invoke, has been replaced by "the transfer of the economic development mode" in the report delivered by General Secretary Hu Jintao to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The shift from the word "growth" to "development" has enriched connotations of the basic category of development and indicates the nation is adhering to the principle of "taking people first" and the resolve and confidence in pushing forward scientific development.

The achievements of China's reform and development over the past three decades have captured global attention. In the great practice of the reform, opening up and the socialist modernization drive, the CPC has become distinctly aware of contradictions and problems in the course of development. When the total economic output expands, the price paid for resource consumption and the environment become high because of the irrational structure and gross growth mode. While people's overall living standards improve, income disparity increases. While overall national development is achieved, social development between the urban and rural areas and between different regions remains imbalanced, and pressure on employment and social security increases.

In a bid to realize the shift from "growth" to "development", the most essential thing is to acquire an in-depth understanding of the Scientific Outlook on Development and implement it in a penetrating way.

So how do we change or transfer the mode of the economic growth? Clear-cut requirements have been furnished in Hu's report to the 17th Party Congress: improve the innovative capacity, spur the strategic adjustment of the economic structure, proceed to take a new road of industrialization with Chinese characteristics and develop a modern industrial system; balance urban and rural development, take a path of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics.

(China Daily 11/15/2007 page10)