China’s 2020 GDP goal: Doubling 2010‘s

Global Business

Xinhua pic

China will target “medium-high economic growth” in the five years from 2016, according to a communique released on Thursday following a key meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Leaders decided at the four-day Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee that China will aim to double its 2010 GDP and per-capita income of both urban and rural residents by 2020 by ensuring more balanced, inclusive and sustainable development.
SOCIAL MEDIA BAR CHART 1

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Note:

    1. Currency rate used here is the average middle exchange rate for US dollar to Chinese yuan in 2010: 6.7695.
    2. The inflation factor is not considered in this chart.
    3. According to the IMF numbers, China will reach the 2020 goal in 2017 to 2018.

Statistic: China: gross domestic product (GDP) at current prices from 2010 to 2020 (in billion U.S. dollars) | Statista

*IMF estimate  Find more statistics at Statista

 

Figures are represented in 2015 U.S. dollars

The country will also promote greater sophistication in its industrial sector and significantly raise the contribution of consumption to economic growth, according to the communique.

The urbanization ratio calculated based on the number of registered residents will also rise at a faster pace, it said.

Moreover, the communique said that China will lift 70 million the people out of poverty in five years, effectively ending poverty in the country using Chinese poverty levels.

“Although China has made remarkable achievements seen across the world, China remains the worlds biggest developing country. To bridge the development gap between urban and rural areas is a difficult challenge for us. To build a moderately prosperous society in an all around way is the goal of all Chinese people. None of them can be left behind,” Xi said, addressing the Global Poverty Reduction Forum in Beijing on Oct 16th.

“In the next five years, the more than 70 million people under poverty — under Chinese standards — will be out of poverty. This is an important step in implementing China’s development agenda after 2015.”

To achieve this, China will make poverty-relief efforts a main component of economic and social development planning, Xi said.

China bases it’s poverty line on 2,300 yuan ($362) annually or about $1 a day. More than 600 million Chinese people have been lifted above the Chinese poverty line over the past 30 years.

Last year, Zheng Wenkai, vice-minister of an office for poverty alleviation and development under China’s State Council, said that China achieved great success in helping nearly 40 million poor rural residents overcome poverty last year.

“However, poverty is still a salient problem in China,” he said, adding that 82 million people (2013 numbers) are still trapped in poverty using China’s poverty level, and 200 million according to the World Bank standard of $1.25 a day. The number of poverty-stricken people account for 15 percent of the total population in China, by the international standard.

World Bank explanation on poverty levels:

Xi also said China has been working hard to reach the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals, and is the first developing country to meet the target of reducing the population living in poverty by half ahead of the 2015 deadline.

He also said China is committed to eradicating global poverty under the framework of South-South Cooperation (SSC) and hopes to alleviate all populations living beneath $1.25 per day by 2030.

This story compiles information from Xinhua and CCTV.