Communist leadership urge local bureaucrats to implement scientific development--

Communist leadership urge local bureaucrats to implement scientific development(2)

2007-10-22 10:52:51 [ Big Normal Small ] 　Comment

Behind the poor implementation of policies were thirst for growth and interests of local governments, the observers said.

According to Zhuang Jian, senior economist of ADB's (Asian Development Bank) China Resident Mission, the interests of local governments sometimes went against central government's consideration, which was largely a result of the current financial system.

Zhuang said under the system, local governments only had power of administration but without authority to dispose of money allocated by the central government. Therefore, they could only rely on their own revenues and tended to rake in as more money as they could through local investment and GDP growth. The financial system should be reformed, Zhuang added.

Echoing Zhuang, many economists believed, not only the scientific outlook of development should be emphasized, but also corresponding institutional arrangements should be made.

"While helping local governments and officials establish value of performance in line with the strategy, the assessment mechanism of officials' performance should be put under control in a scientific way," said Zhou Tianyong, deputy head of the research office under the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC.

Zhou added that the general public should be authorized to participate in the assessment. To achieve this goal, political reform should be deepened, so to give ordinary people more power to supervise the government and companies.

However, some role model local governments have performed well, particularly in energy and resources conservation, for example, southern China's Guangdong Province.

In the late 1990s, Guangdong began to accelerate industrial restructuring and put energy-efficient services and new and high-tech sectors high on its development agenda.

In the first half of 2006, the service sector accounted for approximately 60 percent of the province's total fixed assets investment.

Meanwhile, Guangdong phased out outmoded production facilities. In 2005, more than 390 small businesses that failed to meet industrial standards were shut down. The same year saw Guangdong's energy consumption for every 10,000 yuan of GDP stand at 0.79 tons of standard coal, the lowest in China and equivalent of 65.8 percent of the national average.

In the first half of 2006, the national per-unit energy consumption went up 0.8 percent on average, but the indicator in Guangdong went down 2.5 percent. The observers accredited these achievements to efficient policy execution by the provincial government.

Wang Xiaoguang believed the scientific outlook on development was a result of the fact that economic and social development had entered a new era and it summed up experiences of China's reform and opening up over the past three decades. It also resulted from the integration of concepts of development in economy, society, politics and cultures, he added.

As a new measure to practice the scientific outlook of development, the State Council, China's cabinet, has recently approved the master plan of urban and rural development of southwestern China's Chongqing. It was the nation's first master plan for coordinated development of urban and rural areas.

The plan aims to eliminate discrimination against rural people, which was partly caused by the current residence registration system, and to narrow the income gap between the urban and rural residents.

Under the master plan, redundant labors in rural areas will be encouraged to flow into urban areas, migrant workers will be facilitated to turn into urban residents, resources will be distributed in a balanced way between urban and rural areas, and the residence registration system and land control and land use regime will be reformed.

Attending the 17th CPC National Congress, Huang Daowei, party chief of Qinzhou City, southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said, "The scientific concept of development is not a catchphrase, but an orientation of China's future development, which conforms to the experience and trend of global development. To achieve scientific development, we should do our work in real earnest."

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