Goals attained by adapting to new normal economy

East China's Jiangxi province has reached the goals set for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) by adapting to the economic new normal - sustainable, mid- to high-speed growth with higher efficiency and lower costs - according to the 12th plenary meeting of the 13th Jiangxi provincial committee of the Communist Party of China.

The meeting was held in Nanchang, the capital of the province, on Monday.

The province has seized new opportunities through economic restructuring and industrial upgrading and charted a new blueprint for the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), said Qiang Wei, Party chief of Jiangxi, who delivered a government work report at the meeting.

Jiangxi has made great strides in such aspects as economic growth, local residents' life quality improvement and green development in the first three quarters of the year, according to the report.

Rapid growth

In the first three quarters, Jiangxi's GDP reached 1.16 trillion yuan ($181.55 billion), up 9.2 percent year-on-year, which ranked the province fifth among all provincial regions in the country, according to the province's statistics bureau.

The province has also pushed forward opening-up and encouraged local enterprises to participate in international cooperation and competition, said the government work report. The government has sent several delegations of government officials and local entrepreneurs to other countries, including Australia, Russia and the United States, to promote economic and cultural exchanges, the report said.

From January to September, the province's utilized foreign investment amounted to $6.82 billion, up 11.07 percent year-on-year. Its outbound direct investment increased by 60 percent from the same period last year.

The province has learned from the experiences of the four free-trade zones in Fujian and Guangdong provinces and Shanghai and Tianjin, and devised a plan to apply those lessons in accelerating its development.

Deepened reform

The provincial government has also made great progress in pushing forward all-around reform. It has created more than 30 guidelines for systematic reform and launched 451 pilot reform projects.

The number of items that require provincial administrative approval or business service fees has been cut significantly in Jiangxi thanks to the reforms.

Reforms in other areas, including official vehicles, State-owned enterprises, the taxation system and the cultural industrial system, are also going smoothly, according to the government work report.

Quality of life

The province's efforts in promoting growth and reform have significantly benefited its residents.

The per capita income of urban residents in the province reached 19,250 yuan in the first three quarters, up 9.2 percent year-on-year, and the figure for rural residents amounted to 7,490 yuan, up 10.5 percent year-on-year, the provincial statistics bureau said in October. Both growth rates are higher than the national average.

Meanwhile, the provincial government earmarked 100 billion yuan to deal with 50 issues concerning people's livelihoods over the past year.

The government's spending on improving life quality accounted for 75.3 percent of its total expenditure, according to statistics.

The government also started the renovation of more than 156,000 homes in the province's shantytown areas from January to October. About 102,000 apartments have been completed, and 150,000 people have moved into new homes.

Jiangxi has also made remarkable achievements in poverty alleviation over the years. The province has pledged to eradicate absolute poverty by 2018 and lift all counties out of poverty by 2020. With government efforts, more than 700,000 impoverished people in the province are expected to live better lives this year.

shixiaofeng@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/27/2015 page17)