How can poverty alleviation overcome difficulties under the 13th Five-Year Plan?

On the 29th, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee concluded successfully. The plenary session put forward new goals and requirements for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects: maintain medium-to-high-speed economic growth, and on the basis of improving the balance, inclusiveness, and sustainability of development, by 2020 double the 2010 gross domestic product and the per capita income of urban and rural residents, move industry toward the medium-to-high end, significantly increase consumption's contribution to economic growth, and accelerate the increase in the urbanization rate of the registered population. Notable progress will be made in agricultural modernization, the living standards and quality of the people will generally improve, rural poor people under China's current standards will be lifted out of poverty, all poor counties will shed their poverty caps, and regional overall poverty will be resolved. The quality of the people and the level of social civilization will improve significantly. The quality of the ecological environment will improve overall. Systems in all areas will become more mature and more well-defined, and major progress will be made in the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. (Xinhua Net, October 30)

Building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020 is the first of the “two centenary goals” set by our Party. The “13th Five-Year Plan” period is the decisive stage for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and the “13th Five-Year Plan” must be formulated closely around the realization of this goal.

Building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is an important goal for the current period and for some time to come. It is the integration of a series of comprehensive projects in the country's top-level design, and the most obvious of these are none other than changes in gross domestic product and the increase in the income of urban and rural residents. At the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, our Party comprehensively formulated and deliberated and approved the Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, and put forward the long-range plan and grand goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020.

From the goals, the relevant interpretive data are endlessly varied, but what they all come down to is achieving common prosperity and win-win outcomes for the people. The author believes that lifting rural poor people under current standards out of poverty and removing their poverty caps, resolving regional overall poverty, sharing the dividends of reform, and narrowing the urban-rural gap are among the keys to guaranteeing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. At present, there is still room for economic development and structural adjustment to gather momentum. Just as industrial relocation in developed cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou gradually moves labor-intensive enterprises and energy-consuming industries to small and medium-sized cities and satellite town construction, analysis of the data and the types of relocation shows that relevant poor areas can also implement such a strategy. Through methods such as integrated development and joint construction, they can proactively reach out and invite developed cities to carry out poverty alleviation in regional poor areas, and relevant departments can also proactively set up the stage to promote mutual connectivity between cities, ensuring the stability and continuity of policy implementation.

The plenary session proposed that to adhere to innovative development, innovation must be placed at the core of the overall national development situation, continuously advancing innovation in theory, institutions, science and technology, culture, and other areas, letting innovation run through all work of the Party and the state, and letting innovation become a common practice throughout society. Poor areas should seize these commanding heights driven by pioneers of innovation, actively cultivate new drivers of development, and by optimizing the allocation of factors such as labor, capital, land, technology, and management, stimulate the vitality of innovation and entrepreneurship, promote mass entrepreneurship and innovation, release new demand, create new supply, and promote the vigorous development of new technologies, new industries, and new business forms. Many poor areas are not inherently poor in resources; rather, they lack the support of impetus acquired later. Xunwu in Jiangxi was one of the national poor counties in 2014. It is also an old revolutionary base area and a major labor-exporting county. It has more mountains and less land, but that does not mean it has no advantages. Every autumn, the oranges and tangerines in the mountains here turn golden patch by patch. It is precisely because of poor transportation and poor information flow that various agricultural products pile up and sell poorly. With the implementation of the national Internet Plus initiative, the big data plan also extended to the situation of agricultural products here. In particular, the rural outlet plans of online media and e-commerce platforms such as Taobao have made Gannan navel oranges in Jiangxi shine greatly. This not only solved the problem of poor sales of some agricultural products, but also brought new ideas to the people in these poor areas. All of this stems from the impetus of innovation.

In building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, poverty must absolutely not be allowed to hold things back. To resolve regional poverty and promote the removal of poverty caps in poor counties and cities, we must rely on relevant policies of the “13th Five-Year Plan.” Government departments in all localities must do a good job in interpreting the spirit of the plenary session and in all-round alignment with policies and industries. We must thoroughly reverse the outdated approach of single-method poverty alleviation, abandon the old concept of giving money and goods, and from the aspects of laying foundations, cultivating talent, developing industries, and creating science and technology, highlight the characteristics of regional resources, adapt measures to local conditions, cultivate regional characteristic industries according to the idea of industrialization, make characteristic industries larger and stronger, play the card of regional characteristics, and add bricks and tiles to the implementation of the “13th Five-Year Plan.”