Quality time for development
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According to United Nations data, the Gini Coefficient was 0.25 in Japan in 2001, which was a low level even when compared with other developed countries. Japan's huge middle-class population, which accounts for more than 70 percent of its total population, constitutes a huge driving force for sustainable consumption.
Japan has around 60 percent of high value-added products in its exports and a green GDP development model that give it a huge advantage over China, whose exports of low value-added products have resulted in huge energy consumption.
Despite being labeled as the world's workshop, China still cannot be called a manufacturing power. The country's manufacturing volumes account for 6 percent of the world's total, but the sector's input in research is only 0.3 percent of the world's total. That means China's manufacturing technology and innovation are still at a relatively low level.
In technology and knowledge-intensive sectors, China's enterprises are still in a disadvantageous position and its manufacturing still lies at the middle and low end of the world's industrial chain. All these, if not changed, will weaken China's potential for further and sustainable development.
Compared with China, Japan's manufacturing productivity still leads the world, even though its manufacturing sector has maintained slow growth in recent years.
Statistics from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry show that the country's manufacturing productivity has maintained an annual average of 4.1 percent, which is behind only the 4.7 percent of the US when compared with the US, Britain, Germany and France. Japan has regarded the development of advanced manufacturing technologies, innovations and new products as the best way to sharpen the international competitiveness of its manufacturing sector.
A string of factors, such as an insufficiency of resources, the large proportion of rural and impoverished population, and an unreasonable economic structure, are obstacles to China's further and rapid development.
Over the past six decades, China has developed well from a poor and backward socialist nation. The country is now at a new starting point for bigger development. However, China's development model is facing the severe challenge of profound transformation.
For a country that is at this particularly crucial stage, it is more important to push for its economic transformation from the quantity-focused to the quality-focused than to purely expand its economic size.
The author is an economics researcher with the State Information Center.
