Party meeting focuses on major issues ( 2003-09-30 08:38) (Xinhua)
The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee
met on Monday to discuss plans on major political and economic issues, such as
economic restructuring, proposed revision of the nation's Constitution, and
revitalization of the old industrial base in northeast China.
Chinese President
Hu Jintao. [China Daily/File]
Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Party's Central Committee, presided over
the meeting.
The Political Bureau decided at the meeting to submit two major documents to
the Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee, scheduled to
convene in Beijing from October 11-14, for deliberation.
The two documents are a draft decision by the CPC Central Committee on some
issues related to the improvement of the socialist market economic system, and a
draft proposal of the CPC Central Committee on revising part of the
Constitution.
The Political Bureau called for efforts to ensure the country's strategy on
revitalizing the old industrial base in northeast China, describing it as a
long-term and arduous task.
It also stressed the need to continue the strategy to develop its vast but
impoverished western region, and support the central part of the country for
faster economic and social development.
Efforts should be made to encourage some developed areas in the eastern
region to take the lead in the country's modernization drive, and promote
coordinated economic and social development on a regional basis, the Political
Bureau said.
Members of the Standing
Committee of Political Bureau of CPC Central Committe salute Party members at
the closing of the 16th Party Congress in November, 2002.
[newsphoto.com.cn]
The Chinese government decided in early September it is the right
time for China to turn those rusty industrial centers in northeast China and
other parts of the country into modern industrial ones, making them new and
important growth areas of the national economy.
Covering the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, the northeast
region played a major role in the industrial development of China in 1950s to
early 1970s.
The northeast contributed China's first batch of steel, machine tools,
locomotives and planes after the founding of New China in 1949, and still has
potential in these fields.
However, many of the traditional industrial enterprises that were established
in the 1950s when China adopted a planned economic system, became less
competitive, and some have been losing money over the past 20 years, during
which time China implemented the policies of reform and opening up to the
outside world, and moved from a planned economy toward a market economy.
The proportion of the region's industrial output value to the national total
dropped to 9 percent from a record 17 percent. Some loss-making state-owned
industrial enterprises were closed, resulting in mass unemployment.
Xu Zemin, a research fellow with the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of
Social Sciences, said the revitalization program is expected to make the
northeastern region a new economic growth area following the flourishing Pearl
River Delta in the south, a result of the reform drive, and the Yangtze River
Delta in the east.
