Promote sound, sustainable and quality development

The 12th Five-year Plan period (2011-2015) is a critical stage for China to build a society of initial prosperity in all respects. Taking into full consideration the future trend and conditions as well as China's goals for 2020 and responding to the need for changing the model of growth at a faster pace, achieving scientific development and bringing the benefits of development to all the people, we have set the following goals and strategic tasks for these five years:

China will continue to follow the strategy of expanding domestic demand, with focus on improving the structure of demand and increasing consumer demand. Domestic demand is crucial for a big country to achieve sustainable growth. China has 20 percent of the world's population. With its per capita GDP exceeding $4,000, it has entered a key stage for upgrading consumption structure. To raise the quality of life for the urban and rural population and strengthen weak links in economic and social development will generate enormous domestic demand. We will endeavor to build a long-term mechanism for expanding consumer demand, create a favorable environment for consumption, improve consumer expectation, boost spending power and upgrade consumption structure. We will achieve all these by advancing urbanization, improving people's wellbeing and speeding up the development of service industries. We aim to make urbanization grow by 4 percentage points, and raise the share of the value added from service industries in GDP by 4 percentage points, so that demand will become a major force driving economic growth.

China will continue to develop education as a priority, promote economic development on the basis of improving the quality of human capital. For a major developing country like China, boosting education and improving the quality of human resources will make its economy more competitive. We will act quickly to achieve economic growth by increasing the quality of human capital. This will enable us to catch up with the progress in technology and change the model of growth, and it holds the key for us to adapt to demographic changes. We will fully implement the outline of the national medium- and long-term plan for education and promote balanced development of education at different levels and of various types. We will ensure equitable education for all, promote well-rounded development of people, train innovation-oriented talents, and advance education in a scientific manner. And we will move faster to make China not only a big country but also a strong one in both education and human resources. This will provide strong intellectual impetus for sustaining China's development.

China will continue to build an innovation-driven society, speed up the development of an innovation system, and enhance the role of science and technology in economic and social development. R&D is crucial in guiding our efforts to accelerate the change of growth model. During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, we will give greater priority to R&D, deepen reform of science and technology institutions, and address the root causes of R&D not fully meeting the need of economic development. We will increase input in science and technology and raise the share of the budget for R&D in GDP from 1.75 to 2.2 percent. We will follow closely the latest progress in overseas frontier technologies, strengthen basic research and the research of high technologies of strategic importance, and pool resources to make breakthroughs in developing core technologies. We will enhance the capacity to create, utilize, protect and manage intellectual property rights and bring into play the creativity of the whole society. We will accelerate the upgrading of traditional industries by using new technologies, new materials, new techniques and new equipment. We will vigorously develop strategic emerging industries, with a focus on industries related to energy conservation, environmental protection, new-generation information technology, biotechnology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, new materials and new energy vehicles. Our goal is to develop new pillar industries so as to gain initiative for development in the new scientific revolution and industrial revolution.

China will continue to save resources and protect the environment, follow the path of sustainable development, use resources in a more efficient way, and develop a stronger capacity for tackling climate change. Conservation of resources and environmental protection is crucial to sustainable development, and this is one of China's basic state policies. We will speed up the building of an industrial structure, a mode of production and a model of consumption that are conducive to sustainable development. During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, we will raise the share of non-fossil energy in primary energy consumption to 11.4 percent, reduce energy consumption and CO2 emission per unit of GDP by 16 percent and 17 percent respectively, and cut the total discharge of major pollutants by 8-10 percent. We will improve laws, regulations and standards, strengthen performance-based accountability, overhaul the pricing mechanism for energy and resources and increase fiscal, taxation, financial and other policy incentives. We will promote circular economy, develop low-carbon industrial, construction and transportation systems, promote energy, water, land and material conservation and integrated resource utilization, preserve and repair the eco-system, increase forest carbon sink, and build stronger capacity for tackling climate change.