No mention of GDP target means more focus on quality: official
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E-mail Xinhua, October 27, 2017
No mention of a target to double the GDP in President Xi Jinping's report means China will put more focus on implementing new development concepts, an official said on Thursday.
Addressing the opening session of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi outlined a two-step approach to making China into a great modern socialist country.
China has previously set 2020 as the target year to finish building a moderately prosperous society (Xiaokang). Two key components of the 2020 goal are to eradicate poverty and to double the country's GDP and per-capita income from 2010 levels.
"Xi's two-step strategy has not mentioned targets like doubling GDP, as economic growth has gone onto high-quality stage rather than high speed," said Yang Weimin, deputy head of the Office of the Central Leading Group on Financial and Economic Affairs, at a press conference.
For the economy, the most prominent problem now is growth quality, and we need to address unbalanced and inadequate development through changes in quality, efficiency and growth drivers, Yang said.
For the coming three years, the key battlefields will be preventing major risks, poverty reduction and pollution control, according to Yang.
In the report, Xi said the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved into one between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life.
According to Xi, socialist modernization will be basically realized from 2020 to 2035. From 2035 to the middle of the century, China will become a great socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful.
China's economy showed strong resilience in the first three quarters with GDP expansion holding steady at 6.9 percent year on year.
