Despite a slowdown, China achieved 96% of its 5-year-plan goals

In its 12th Five-Year Plan, China set 25 state goals which it hoped to achieve between 2011 and 2015.

Just last week, the Chinese State Council announced that all bar one of these 25 goals were achieved in the period.

The one missing achievement was to maintain annual growth of 6 percent for imports and exports. Although trade volumes were down 8 percent in 2015, China still remains the largest trading nation and the largest exporter in the world.

Goal highlights

Below are some of the highlights of the goals that were achieved as part of China’s 12th Five- Year-Plan.

Goal: Reduce the number of restrictions on foreign direct investment by half.

Outcome: 41 of the 79 restrictions have been removed.

Goal: Investment in railway infrastructure to exceed 800 billion yuan (NZ$180 billion).

Outcome: Total investment in railway amounted to 824 billion yuan.

Goal: Utilise more than 8,000 kilometres of newly built rail.

Outcome: 9,531 kilometres of newly-built railways were put into use.

Goal: Construct or reconstruct 200,000 kilometres of highways in rural areas.

Outcome: 251,000 kilometres of newly-constructed or reconstructed highways were built.

Goal: Create more than 10 million jobs in urban areas.

Outcome: 13.12 million jobs were created in urban areas.

Goal: Reduce the registered unemployment rate to 4.5 percent.

Outcome: The rate was 4.05 percent in 2015.

Goal: Alleviate poverty in the rural population by at least 10 million.

Outcome: Achieved.

A few unknowns

Completing 96 percent of its goals is a major achievement for China. The sheer breadth of these goals makes it seemingly unimaginable for all of them to be achieved at the same time.

Despite all this talk of success, there are some lingering concerns surrounding China’s accomplishments. For example, the current structural reforms are likely to result in layoffs and major increases in unemployment. Most recently, it has been suggested that approximately 1.8 million workers will lose their jobs in the coal and steel industries.

It is expected that the total layoffs in the next two years will be close to 6 million workers. The Chinese central government will allocate 100 billion yuan ($NZ 22.5 billion) in this period to relocate the workers affected by these structural reforms.

Published on interest.co.nz