A pragmatic Government Work Report

'Balanced goals do not raise public expectations too high nor disappoint'

Premier Li Keqiang's Government Work Report was pragmatic and concrete, pointing out challenges as well as strengths and opportunities, according to a US-based China scholar.

Some 3,000 deputies to the 12th National People's Congress are now deliberating the report, which Li delivered at the opening of the legislature's fourth session on March 5 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Li Cheng, director of the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution, says the report tells people that the Chinese economy is facing difficulties as a result of structural reforms, the need for better environmental protection and the impact of a sluggish global economy.

"It tells the public that such economic challenges will last for a period of time," he says, and elaborates on China's strengths, such as potential in urbanization, development of the service sector, and employment and innovation policies.

"So this is a report that neither gives the public too high an expectation nor disappointment," says Li Cheng, whose research has focused on the transformation of Chinese leaders and technological development in China.

He believes this is especially important during the coming two years, or the beginning years of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), when there won't be excessively high economic growth, something he says China does not need.

In the work report, China's GDP growth this year was set between 6.5 and 7 percent. It's the first time since 1995 for the growth target to be in a range rather than a single number.

China's economy grew 6.9 percent last year, the lowest in a quarter of a century, but it was still among the highest in the world.

According to the report, an average annual growth of at least 6.5 percent should be maintained in the coming five years to achieve the goal of doubling GDP and household incomes by 2020 from the 2010 levels. It also says that, by 2020, the contribution from scientific and technological advances should account for 60 percent of GDP growth.

Li Cheng says structural reforms will bring a lot of challenges, all of which the Chinese government will need to deal with.

He describes the goals in the work report as very specific: "There isn't much empty content. It's what the Chinese public wants to see and it's a relatively balanced and good report, one pertinent to China's situation today."

The scholar says he would have liked the report to have emphasized more that many challenges are also opportunities. "It's just the beginning, and the potential is huge," he says, citing how areas such as environmental protection could help job creation and businesses.

For Li Cheng, the potential opportunities will help small, medium-sized and large companies, Chinese companies overseas and foreign-funded enterprises in China to break new ground.

He says the growth targets in the 13th Five-Year Plan are reasonable. "More than 90 percent of what's in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) has been achieved, and there's a better reason to achieve what's in the 13th Five-Year Plan."

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com