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After Massive Stimulus, a Long Way to Go for China

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The State Council, or the Cabinet, has rolled out support plans for ten sectors such as steel, auto and textile. While targeting industrial growth, they also stress restructuring and upgrading.

In addition, China has adjusted its 4 trillion-yuan (US$585 billion) investment package, shedding some spending on infrastructure while adding funds for medical care, education and industrial upgrading.

According to the revised version disclosed last week, 37.5 percent goes to infrastructure, 25 percent to reconstruction in southwestern regions hit by a devastating earthquake last year, and nearly 20 percent to low-income housing and rural infrastructure.

Compared with the US$787 billion package signed by the US President Barack Obama last month, of which 35 percent will be spent on tax cuts and more than 20 percent on social welfare, China only plans to use 3.75 percent to fund health care, cultural and education undertakings.

Some of the package spending, in addition to a 850 billion-Yuan medical reform plan, will support China's long-term development by improving people's living standards and raising disposable income of the low-income group, said senior economist Louis Kuijs of the World Bank Beijing Office.

But overall, the package by itself won't do much to rebalance the growth pattern as "most of the spending is geared to investment instead of consumption", he said.

A limit of the 4 trillion-yuan stimulus package is the lack of spending on social security, which is key to boosting consumption, said Tang Min, deputy secretary general of the China Development Research Foundation.

The think tank issued a report last month calling on the government to spend 2.6 trillion yuan by 2012 and increase that to5.7 trillion yuan by 2020 to establish a full-scale social security program that covers all basic needs.

With meagre social security, Chinese are more willing to save their money in banks than spending it without worrying for the old age or costly medical treatment.

Besides, the sluggish reform of the country's income distributing system also slowed the pace of the income growth for ordinary Chinese.

The shares of enterprises and government in the national disposable income have been rising in China, while that of households declined 11.3 percentage points from 1992 to 57 percent in 2007, central bank figures show.

The government should make sure the income of wage-earners is at least kept at the current level, while more dividends of state-owned enterprises should be transferred to households, said Zhuang.

For Chinese farmers, who account for nearly 60 percent of the country's population, efforts are urged to make the pricing of farm produce more market-oriented and reduce the rural-urban income gaps.

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