Vice-Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Ningxia Hui autonomous region this week highlighted the importance of timely taking stock of our efforts to build a better-off society in an all-around way.

If the country is to meet its major targets for economic and social development during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015), Chinese policymakers must pay close attention to improving people's living conditions, especially those of less privileged residents.

During most of previous five-year plans, the Chinese government set many desirable goals for raising people's living standards while stressing the need to continue the country's long-term growth story.

But, more often than not, while the country has successfully beaten even the most optimistic forecasts about its economic performance, it has left a lot to be desired when it comes to its goals for social development.

After the world's largest developing country kick-started its phenomenal growth in the late 1970s, the wisdom of prioritizing economic growth before everything else for so long may be open to question.

But it is now a consensus among Chinese leaders that the priority for policymaking should be to ensure that all citizens enjoy a better life.

Vice-Premier Li has driven home this message by carefully studying how people's basic needs are met in the country's relatively less developed area.

Such a high-level visit before the all-important Spring Festival is meant not only to show that the central authorities care about residents in the nation's poorer areas.

More importantly, it is also a fact-finding exchange between top leaders and the public about the progress and effects of major projects like government-subsidized affordable housing and medical reforms.

To ensure that implementation of the 12th Five-YearPlan strengthens the foundations for the making of a better-off society in an all-around way, Chinese policymakers should be ready to engage in such fact-finding exchanges more frequently and be quick to respond to any problems that the visits bring to their attention.

(China Daily 01/18/2012 page8)