Transitions in China’s Economic Growth: Realities and Challenges

Abstract

It is an irrefutable fact that the Chinese economy has grown rapidly for nearly 30 years, in particular in the 10th Five- Year Plan terms (2001-2005). At the same time, China’s economic development is challenged severely by declining efficiency, imbalance between investment and consumption, resource and environmental constraints, and increasing differentiation in incomes.     The need for a consistent transformation of the economic growth pattern was realized in the 1990s. In the 9th Five-Year Plan (1996-2000), the goal of transition of the economic growth mode from extensive to intensive was initially shaped. Furthermore, economic structure adjustment and upgrading had been regarded as the theme of development during the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005).  In 2002, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s 16th National Congress advocated that: “China would pursue a new path to industrialization featuring high technology, good economic returns, low resource-consumption, low environment pollution and the full display of advantage in human resources.” In reality, however, it seems that so far these goals have been fulfilled only in part.