We won major victories in the fight against the Wenchuan earthquake and other natural disasters. The post-earthquake recovery and reconstruction work in Wenchuan was basically completed in two years instead of the scheduled three, and recovery and reconstruction work following the strong Yushu earthquake and major mudslide in Zhugqu is proceeding in an orderly manner. Passing these severe tests made the Chinese people more mature, more confident and stronger, and the great, indomitable and unyielding spirit of the Chinese nation is invincible.
We constantly deepened reform of the administrative system. We accelerated the transformation of government functions, completed a new round of reforms of government agencies, intensively carried out administration in accordance with the law, developed law-based government, made the government more service-oriented, made government affairs more open, improved the administrative accountability system, tirelessly combated corruption, and made positive progress in government capacity building.
We worked steadily and made solid progress, and the Chinese people have every reason to take pride in this. Our achievements did not come easily. They were made thanks to the broad vision and correct leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Hu Jintao as General Secretary and the concerted efforts of the Party and the people of all ethnic groups across the country. On behalf of the State Council, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the people of all ethnic groups, all democratic parties and mass organizations, and people from all walks of life. In addition, I would like to express my thanks to our compatriots in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and in Taiwan, and overseas Chinese. Finally, my sincere thanks go to the governments of other countries, international organizations and friends from around the world who care for and support China's modernization.
We are keenly aware that we still have a serious problem in that our development is not yet well balanced, coordinated or sustainable. This manifests itself mainly in the following: growing resource and environmental constraints hindering economic growth, imbalance between investment and consumption, large income gap, insufficient scientific and technological innovation capabilities, an irrational industrial structure, continued weakness in the agricultural foundation, uneven development between urban and rural areas and between regions, the coexistence of overall pressure to expand employment and structural shortage of qualified personnel in some industries, defects in systems and mechanisms that hinder scientific development, and our failure to meet three targets set in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan - the value-added of the service sector, its share in total employment, and spending on R&D as a percentage of GDP. Moreover, we have not yet fundamentally solved a number of issues that the masses feel strongly about, namely the lack of high-quality educational and medical resources, and their uneven distribution; increasing upward pressure on prices, and exorbitant housing price increases in some cities; increasing social problems resulting from illegal land expropriations and housing demolitions; significant problems concerning food safety; and rampant corruption in some areas. We must therefore have a strong sense of responsibility toward the country and the people and work tirelessly and painstakingly to solve these problems more quickly to the satisfaction of the people.