Question

1. Will China maintain its strong economic growth in the years to come? Some suggest it will until 2050. What do you think?

Answer 1

Compared with various economic quotas of developed countries, China still falls far behind, but there is much room for its economic growth. The official with the National Bureau of Statistics, indicate that there is much room for China's economic development.

In terms of industrial structure, the tertiary industry of the United States takes up more than 70 percent of its GDP, while the rates of Britain, France, Germany and Japan have all exceeded 60 percent. The rate of China only stands at around 33 percent.

In terms of consumption demand, which is in direct ratio to economic development, the consumption rate (the proportion of consumption in the GDP) of the United States tops 80 percent and its investment rate is less than 20 percent, while the consumption rate of China only slightly exceeds 60 percent.

  The appropriate handling of the problems related to farmers and rural areas will boost the development of the national economy.

Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the State Council's Development Research Center, assured that if the rural surplus laborers can transfer to other sectors and if the non-agriculture income of farmers can increase year by year, the agricultural sector, instead of hindering the development of the national economy, would become a positive factor to ensure economic growth.

According to Chen, the GDP of the United States, Japan and some other developed countries was doubled in less than 10 years after it had reached USS1,000 billion. The circumstances of China, however, greatly vary from those of these countries after its GDP hit USS1,000 billion. First, while the majority of the people of these countries live in cities, nearly two-thirds of the Chinese people live in rural areas. Second, in terms of the ratio of agriculture in the GDP, that of Japan and the United States is less than 10 percent and less than 6 percent respectively, while that of China is 16.4 percent.

To maintain the momentum of sound development, the employment of rural population should be handled properly. If the problems related to the employment and income of farmers are not well handled, the rural areas can hardly maintain stability and the tremendous potential for consumption in rural areas cannot be tapped.

China's persistence in reform and opening-up provides important guarantees for preventing the drastic fluctuation of the national economy

China, also an Asian country, is experiencing the process of economic growth as the aforementioned countries and regions. Xu Xianchun, based on his own research, concludes that the Chinese economy can void the prolonged low growth of Japan after experiencing swift development. This is not only because China has tremendous potentials and vast room for development, but also the guarantee provided by its persistence in reform and opening-up.

Moreover, China has accumulated a great deal of precious experiences and has strong capacity to control its economy, which enables it to prevent the drastic fluctuations of its economy. The chart of the growth of China's GDP indicates that big ups and downs had dominated prior to the 1970s, and that the tendency of steady growth has become increasing strong in recent years. Though China still faces many problems, it has acquired a considerable material foundation and accumulated rich experiences over the past years. As long as the country maintains social stability, its economic growth rate won't decline suddenly.