re: China's proposed regulated growth rate?
This is an interesting write that I picked up on China.com's web site. Note that the government's role will continue to be dominant in those industries deemed critical to national security, and would allow the consumer areas more freedoms. Hmm.. How will this play in the telecomms sectors, including the 'net?
It's difficult to discern from this writing (below) whether the Chinese Government regards the 'net as a part of their backwards telecomms infrastructure, or something that they are evading any discussion on at this point. Certainly, consumer improvements would be tied to the enabling attributes of B2C features on the web, if such were permited to advance.
Is there a contradiction in here, somewhere, that they maybe don't get, yet? Is the report belew to be regarded as a legitimate interpretation of what's transpiring at this time, or is it more double talk, like tenth five year plan? Comments welcome.
Regards, Frank Coluccio
ps - if you should happen to go to China.com's home page, be attentive to two things. First, the amount of time it takes to pull down the page, and second, the appearance of the AOL logo on the right hand side of the page, and the Saturday Morning (11/20/99) news story about Microsoft suing a Chinese business for piracy, on the left hand side of the page. I thought that it made for an interesting contrast.
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english.china.com
Revised Five-Year Plan to Meet New Challenge
Nov 19 1999 01:28:00:000PM
Home > Business
China is injecting more market elements into its 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-2005) in light of its imminent accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Drafters of the plan, who began work in the spring, have been told after Monday's
WTO agreement with the United States to revise the blueprint with the goal of
making state firms more competitive.
A source in Beijing said that President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji were
directly involved in supervising the drafting procedure.
The plan would implement instructions by Mr Jiang that the state would beat a
retreat from certain product lines.
The source said: "The plan will recommend a curtailment of state-owned enterprises in competitive, commercial sectors. However, state firms will remain dominant in areas deemed essential to national security or the people's livelihood such as transportation."
The non-state sector, which will benefit from a post-WTO injection of foreign capital and technology, would play a bigger role, particularly in fields affecting ordinary consumers.
Moreover, selected provinces and cities would be allowed to set targets for closing down state firms in sectors with low productivity.
Another priority of the planners was to protect the local economy as much as possible from the expected influx of goods and services.
For example, state firms in product lines deemed backward by international standards, such as telecommunications and vehicles, would get additional government help to consolidate their market share before WTO provisions began to bite. More enterprises, including commercial banks, would be turned into shareholding companies.
Economic sources in Beijing said the average growth rate for the 10th Five-Year Plan period would stay around seven per cent.
To further stimulate domestic demand, central authorities would probably allow more rural residents to move radually to urban areas.(Wisers) |
