ith its development entering a newhistorical stage in the second decade of the 21st century, China is goingthrough an important period of strategic opportunities. Peace, development and co-operation remain the keytrends of our times. The international environment isgenerally conducive to China's pursuit of peacefuldevelopment. Numerous factors - continuousindustrialisation, urbanisation and agriculturalmodernisation, huge market potential, a relatively highsavings rate, better R&D capacity, better education, amore skilled labour force, deepening reform andoverall stability - have created enabling conditions andvast space for continued economic and socialdevelopment in China. On the other hand, we are stillfacing a pressing problem that China's development isnot yet balanced, co-ordinated and sustainable andthere are many institutional constraints hinderingscientific development. As the size of the Chineseeconomy grows, it will become difficult to keep high-speed growth over a long period of time. However, thenew developments, both internationally and in China,have not changed the fundamentals of China'sdevelopment. We have the right conditions, and wehave both the ability and confidence to maintainsteady and fairly fast growth of the economy and bringChina's economy to a new stage of development.Thecurrent 12th Five-year Plan period is a critical stage inChina's efforts to build a society of initial prosperity inall respects. Taking into full consideration the futuretrend and conditions as well as China's goals for 2020and responding to the need for changing the model ofgrowth at a faster pace, achieving scientificdevelopment and bringing the benefits of reform anddevelopment to all the people, we have set thefollowing goals and strategic tasks for these five years:China will continue to follow the strategy of expandingdomestic demand, with focus on improving thestructure of demand and increasing consumer demandto drive economic growth.Domestic demand is crucialand a necessary choice for a big country to achievesustainable economic growth. China has 20 per cent ofthe world's population. With its per capita GDPexceeding US$4,000, China has entered a key stagefor upgrading consumption structure. To upgradeconsumption and raise the quality of life for urban andrural population and strengthen weak links in economicand social development will generate enormousdomestic demand. We will endeavour to build a long-term mechanism for expanding consumer demand,create a favourable environment for consumption,improve consumer expectation, boost spending powerand upgrade consumption structure. We will expandconsumption in the course of advancing urbanisation,protecting and improving people's well-being andspeeding up the development of service industries. Weaim to make urbanisation grow by another fourpercentage points, and raise the share of the valueadded created by service industries in GDP by another4 percentage points, so that final demand will becomea major force driving China's economic growth.China will continue to develop education as a priority,bring about all-round human development, andpromote economic development on the basis ofimproving the quality of human capital.For a majordeveloping country like China, boosting education andimproving quality of human resources will driveeconomic development and make it more competitive.We will act quickly to achieve economic growth byincreasing the quality of human capital rather than byjust using more workers. This will enable us to catch upwith the progress in technology and change the modelof growth, and it holds the key for us to adapt toPROMOTING SOUND, SUSTAINABLE AND QUALITY DEVELOPMENT126G20 MEMBER COUNTRIESWEN JIABAO, PRIME MINISTER, THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINAWPhoto: World Economic Forum (WEF)

G20 MEMBER COUNTRIES127Below: Wen Jiabaodemographic changes and achieve sustainabledevelopment. We will fully implement the outline of thenational medium- and long-term plan for education andpromote balanced development of education atdifferent levels and of various types. We will ensureequitable education for all, promote well-roundeddevelopment of people, train innovation-orientedtalents, and advance education in a scientific manner.And we will move faster to make China not only a bigcountry but also a strong country in both education andhuman resources. This will provide strong intellectualimpetus for sustaining China's economic development.China will continue to build an innovation-driven society,speed up the development of an innovation system, andenhance the role of science and technology in drivingeconomic and social development.R&D is crucial inguiding our efforts to accelerate the change of growthmodel. During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, we willgive greater priority to R&D, deepen reform of scienceand technology institutions, and address the root causesof R&D not fully meeting the need of economicdevelopment. We will increase input in science andtechnology and raise the share of budget for R&D in GDPfrom 1.75 per cent to 2.2 per cent. We will follow closelythe latest progress in overseas frontier technologies,strengthen basic research and the research of hightechnologies of strategic importance, and pool resourcesto make breakthroughs in developing core technologies.We will enhance capacity to create, utilise, protect andmanage intellectual property rights and bring into playthe creativity of the whole society. We will accelerate theupgrading of traditional industries by using newtechnologies, materials, techniques and equipment. Wewill develop strategic emerging industries, with a focusat this stage on industries related to energy conservation,environmental protection, new-generation informationtechnology, biotechnology, high-end equipmentmanufacturing, new energy, new materials and newenergy vehicles. Our goal is to develop new pillarindustries so as to gain initiative for development in thenew scientific revolution and industrial revolution." "WE WILL RAISETHE SHARE OFNON-FOSSIL ENERGY IN PRIMARY ENERGYCONSUMPTION TO11.4 PER CENT