本次研讨会的主办方希望我介绍中国目前的发展情况，实际上刚才柏学翥博士和于平副会长在发言中已经作了详细介绍。我也感谢阿加拉瓦尔副主席刚才就中印经贸关系发表了令人鼓舞的讲话。那么我就简单介绍一下中国今年年初出台的“十二五规划”，它为未来五年中国的经济、社会发展制定了蓝图。
I was told to give some brief introduction of what’s going on in China. Actually Dr. Bai Xuezhuand and Mr. Yu Ping have already given very detailed information about those things. I will give a very brief summarization of the 12th five-year plan in China, which was formulated in the beginning of this year. This plan provides a blueprint for the coming five years of China’s economic and social development.

我要讲的第一点是，中国的发展是全方位的发展。关于中国的发展有些误解，有些人说中国只重视经济改革，忽视政治改革，实际上中国所谋求的是包括经济发展和社会事业进步在内的全方位发展。中国同时推进经济和政治制度的改革，没有政治改革，经济进步是无法实现的。认为中国只进行经济改革的说法是错误的，希望大家可以了解这一点。
The first point is that Chinese development is an all-around development. There are some misunderstandings about China’s economic development. Some say that China only emphasizes economic reforms, and neglects political reforms. That’s a misunderstanding of China’s development. China seeks all-around development including economic development as well as social undertakings. China is pushing forward the economic reforms and also pushing forward the political reforms. We believe that economic progress can not be achieved without political reforms. The idea that there is only economic reform in China is actually misleading. I hope that you will understand this point.

第二，中国谋求高质量的发展。刚才中国嘉宾谈到中国决定将未来五年的经济增长速度目标设为7%，而过去五年的经济增长速度目标是7.5%。大家可能从报纸上了解到中国南部最近发生了严重的动车追尾事故，这次事故十分不幸，导致数十人死亡，逾百人受伤。中国国务院总理温家宝到达事故现场接受记者采访时说，高铁建设不是越快越好，而是把速度与质量、效益和安全有机地结合起来，特别是要把安全放在第一位。动车追尾事故发生后，中国网民正在争论高铁的发展是否因过快而忽视了安全和稳定性。毕竟人的安全是最重要的，我们必须在速度与安全之间实现平衡。我认为，高速运行的火车和高速增长的经济之间有相似之处，降低经济增长速度目标就是为了保证经济发展的质量，并把更多精力放在解决经济发展所面临的挑战上来。
The second point is that China seeks a quality economic development. Just now, my colleagues from China have told you that China decided to lower down the economic growth target for the coming five years to 7%. For the last five years, the growth rate target was set at 7.5%. If you read newspapers, you will know that a few days ago, there was a severe collision between two bullet trains in China. That accident was very unfortunate. It led to dozens of people dead and hundreds of people severely injured. When Premier Wen Jiabao went to the incident site, he said to the media that it is not always proper to say that the faster, the better. We need to pay more attention to the security of the transportation. There is a huge debate right now on the internet in China about whether we are developing the bullet trains too fast at the expense of security and stability. Because people’s lives are the most important, we have to achieve the balance between the speed and security. There are some similarities between the fast train and fast growing economy. The idea behind purposely lowering down the economic growth rate target is to ensure the quality of the economic development and to allow more time to address those challenges in the economy.

第三，中国正在改变经济发展方式。多年来，中国经济对出口和政府投资依赖很大。中国和印度成功应对了国际金融危机，中国实施一揽子经济刺激计划，印度也采取迅速有力的措施应对危机，但过于依赖出口和政府投资的经济发展是不可持续的。目前，中国正努力扩大内需。统计数据表明，中国家庭消费对GDP的贡献率仅为35%，印度家庭消费对GDP的贡献率为57%，而美国家庭消费的贡献率为71%。中国要实现扩大内需的目标并不容易，一个问题是人们可能手上没钱，另一个问题是中国人有储蓄的习惯而不愿意消费。因此，首先要解决的问题是让人们手里有钱。中国目前存在比较大的收入差距和地区差距。例如，我曾经在西藏自治区工作，那里的人均GDP和人均净收入仅为全国水平的三分之二。尤其在农村地区，由于收入不高，农民甚至不愿意去医院接受相应的治疗，这一点中印之间有相似之处。最近，中国已经采取措施来解决这些问题。其中一个措施就是提高个人所得税薪酬起征点至3500元人民币，大约6000万工薪阶层受益。第二个要解决的问题是鼓励人们消费。一些人不愿意消费是因为他们有后顾之忧。如果不存钱，而孩子又要上学，钱就不够了；如果退休了，则害怕没有足够钱保障退休后的生活。尤其在城市里，大多数家庭只有一个孩子，如果孩子们长大、结婚，一对年轻夫妇就要赡养四位老人，这是一个非常重的负担。中国正在实施和普及社会保障体系，以解决普通民众的后顾之忧，让人们可以为子女教育、医疗等生活必需开支放心消费。一旦人们有了钱并且愿意消费，扩大内需的目标就实现了。
Third, China seeks to transform the economic development approach. For years, we have heavily relied on the export as well as government investment. India and China have successfully tided over the difficulties brought by the global financial crisis. China introduced the economic stimulus package to deal with the influence of such crisis. India also has done quite well in that regard by taking prompt actions in that area. But relying on export and government investment is not sustainable. Right now China is trying to expend the domestic consumptions. According to one statistics, the contribution by household expenditure to the GDP of China is only 35%. The contribution by the household expenditure to GDP in India is around 57%. Of course USA is doing much better and the household expenditure contribution to GDP is 71%. In China, it’s not easy to achieve the target of expanding the domestic consumptions. One problem is that people may not have money. Second problem is that people are unwilling to spend the money because Chinese people are good at saving money. So the first thing to address is to let people have money. There are big income disparity and regional disparity in China. For example, I once worked in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), which is the west part of China. In TAR, the per capita GDP as well as the net income of the people only occupy respectively two thirds of the national average per capita GDP as well as the average income of China. Especially in some agricultural and rural areas, because of the limited income, farmers are even unwilling to go to hospital to receive proper treatment. I think there are lots of similarities between China and India in that regard. Recently, China has taken some measures to address these issues. One measure is to raise the tax threshold to 3500 RMB. Around 60 million wage earners benefit from such tax reduction. The next issue to address is to encourage people to spend money. Some people don’t want to spend money because they have worries. If I don’t save money, when my kid needs go to school, I don’t have money. If I get retired, I don’t have enough money to support my retirement life. Especially in the cities, most families only have one kid. If the kids grow up and get married, one couple needs to support four parents. This is a huge burden. China right now is implementing and popularizing the social security system so as to relieve the worries of the common people. They can feel confident to spend on kid’s education, medical care and other issues of necessities. Once people have money and are willing to spend, we can achieve the goal of expanding the domestic consumptions.