18 Oct, MEXICO CITY:
China’s 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) has reached its economic and social welfare targets, and attained its foreign policy objectives, according to a Mexican expert.
The targets China has set for itself at the beginning of the five-year period have had “a positive outcome,” Ignacio Martinez Cortes, an expert on international relations at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) told Xinhua in a recent interview.
“I think China has achieved great results in strengthening its domestic market, and also in technological and scientific development for the benefit of the society,” said the academic.
At the same time, China has succeeded in attaining its foreign policy objectives, including playing a larger role in global affairs, noted Cortes.
“Foreign policy rests, on the one hand, on the growth of China’s own GDP (gross domestic product), and on the other hand, on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s new strategies of greater cooperation with Europe and Latin America,” he said.
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Xi’s recent state visit to the United States also represents a move toward greater cooperation “between the two great countries,” he said. “We can see China’s foreign policy presence, not through bellicose measures, but through cooperation, so it is fulfilling its global five-year plan, but not via military investment,” said the expert.
This plan, according to the academic, contains such outstanding features as promoting value-added production in emerging strategic industries to achieve 7 percent growth in GDP, and attracting foreign investment in such key sectors as modern agriculture, high technology and environmental protection.
“Social policy has been well carried out, as I think the birthrate shows, but without a doubt they still need to stay the course in matters of most concern to the people, including the distribution of income, health and educational services, and social security,” said Cortes.
The National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s parliament, endorsed the country’s 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development on March 14, 2011, and China’s central leadership will convene late October to deliberate a comprehensive plan for development over the next five years (2016-2020).
The next five-year plan “will aim to promote reforms and policies designed to raise living standards and prevent income disparity … along with greater social openness and civic participation,” Cortes said.
In contrast with earlier plans, he said, this one will include a greater degree of “political sensitivity regarding this new generation of Chinese that is growing up with greater interaction with the world.” Xinhua
