Opinion: Chinese economy develops along with evolution of Five-Year Plans

Ships pass by the skyline of the Lujiazui Financial District in Pudong in Shanghai on August 14, 2015. (AFP PHOTO/JOHANNES EISELE)

by Xinhua Writer Wang Haiqing

BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Over the past 60-plus years since China issued its first Five-Year Plan for socioeconomic development in 1953, the Chinese economy has evolved from a highly-centralized planned economy into a prosperous market economy with characteristics of socialism.

But even after the market started playing the fundamental role in the distribution of resources, the Chinese government did not scrap the macro-economic planning system.

As noted by many overseas observers, the strong vitality of China's Five-Year planning lies in the fact that the planning itself keeps in pace with the trend of the time.

China's current planning system is far more sophisticated than a mere collection of traditional planning tools. Instead, it is more attuned to China's socioeconomic reality and addresses the need of development more precisely than the old mode.

The primary focus of China's Five-Year Plan has shifted from making macro-economic arrangements to coordinating economic growth with social development.

High-speed trains are set at the Urumqi High-Speed Train Application Center in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 10, 2015. (Xinhua/Zhao Ge)

For any clear-eyed observer, China's Five-Year Plans are now quite different from that in an age of a centrally planned economy, in the sense that the central government does not control all elements of productivity. On the contrary, the central government is taking measures to encourage the private sector to play a bigger role.

The success of the Chinese-style macro socioeconomic planning has also prompted the Western world to review whether or not the free market it has held so dear is the ultimate answer to efficient and effective distribution of resources.

China's policymakers are compiling the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) for the world's largest developing country, and the proposal on the plan was adopted at the Fifth Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, which ended in Beijing on Oct. 29.

The proposal highlights innovation, coordination, green growth, opening up and inclusive development as the new ideas of development in the next five years.

Photo taken on Oct. 17, 2015 shows the aerial view shrimp ponds in the suburb of Beihai city, southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang)

The five ideas, all targeting acute challenges facing China's development, reflect Chinese planners' resolve to further improve the country's socioeconomic conditions.

The five ideas also coincide with the future development emphasis of the whole world, said Guo Shengxiang, a macro-economist with the think tank Australian Institute of Innovative Finance.

As he sees it, what China will do in the next five years could offer valuable reference for other countries. And his view is widely shared among experts and scholars.

Past experiences have shown the Chinese government is very good at making mid- to long-term plans for socioeconomic development and, more importantly, following through with the implementation.

The world has witnessed China's rapid growth and the huge opportunities it has created for other countries in the past few decades. In future, a new chapter of the story of Chinese success therein is set to unfold, with significance extending beyond the border.