With the opening of the "two sessions" (the annual plenary sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC, China's top legislature and the National Committee of the CPPCC, known as "two sessions.") approaching, the attention on education, culture and economy among other topics concerning China's economy and people's livelihoods have been on the rise again.
Transforming the economic growth mode will be hotly discussed.
With over 30 years of reform and opening up, China has made remarkable achievements in economic and social development, but it has also paid a considerable price in its extensive development mode. The development mode must be transformed, which has become a consensus of the entire society.
This is now a critical time in the post-international financial crisis era. China has accomplished amazing achievements in handling the crisis, but the Chinese economy has also exposed its vulnerability such as the housing bubbles, overproduction and inflationary pressure. There is no time for delay in accelerating the transformation of the economic development mode in order to achieve an innovation-driven and organic growth.
During the period before and after the Spring Festival, several democratic parties successively held press conferences to make public the proposals and suggestions they will submit during the "two sessions."
Of them, the content of several suggestions is related to the transformation of the economic development mode. For instance, the China Democratic League Central Committee suggested in its prepared proposals on how to transform the economic growth mode from angles such as transforming government functions and developing vocational education and training in rural areas.
The China Zhi Gong Party suggested in a proposal on how to implement the strategy of expanding trade through promoting science and technology - China's foreign trade growth mode should be transformed by allocating more special funds to trade-related scientific and technological development, as well as taking other measures to effectively cope with anti-dumping, anti-subsidy, technical barriers to trade, tariff barriers and other new trade protectionist measures.
People’s livelihoods become a hot topic
For the first time, endowment insurance now tops the catchword list on http://www.people.com.cn during this year's NPC and CPPCC conferences. A poll showed that 81 percent of Chinese netizens hold that the double-track pension system for business employees, public institution staff and public servants is preposterous. In contrast to healthcare and unemployment relief, nearly 50 percent of the netizens pay the most attention to the endowment insurance.
Housing prices, wealth-gap, employment and healthcare also win intensive attention, following endowment insurance.
Helping people realize their dreams is the duty of NPC and CPPCC members. We hope that all the NPC and CPPCC members can find more solutions to issues concerning the Chinese people's livelihoods. Reporters learned that many NPC and CPPCC members will put forward bills concerning people's livelihoods.