Meeting jiangsu party chief | Luo Zhijun

Luo Zhijun, secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.

SHANGHAI - Residents in East China's Jiangsu province - including city dwellers and farmers - will see their incomes double by the end of 2018, said Luo Zhijun, secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.

To achieve that goal, the province will need to "maintain double-digit growth in GDP over the next seven years, while ensuring residents' incomes keep pace with economic development", Luo said in a recent written interview with China Daily.

Urban residents in the province, whose average yearly disposable incomes exceeded 22,900 yuan ($3,470) in 2010, will see that amount double by 2016. And their rural counterparts, who have average disposable incomes of 9,120 yuan a year, will see the same thing by no later than 2018, said Luo.

Jiangsu is part of the Yangtze River Delta, which is one of the most important economic zones in China. The income differences that exist there between the urban and rural populations are already among the narrowest in China.

Luo also said the province will try to help residents whose average yearly income is less than 2,500 yuan to escape from poverty by the end of next year.

"For that, the provincial government will try to increase residents' wages and salaries, encourage entrepreneurship to help businesses make profits and increase governmental redistributions of wealth to the poor and vulnerable," said the secretary.

He said governments should also work to improve the lives of residents by ensuring a steady supply of affordable and subsidized housing.

"The top priority is to make our people happy instead of blindly pursuing GDP growth, and to pay more attention to the quality and efficiency of economic development," he said.

To ensure its future prosperity, Jiangsu, which boasts the largest amount of foreign investment in China, is hoping to attract various types of emerging industries, especially those that rely heavily on innovative technology and use methods that avoid doing harm to the environment.

One example of the type of product being sought is energy made from sunlight or wind.

The production of solar cells in Jiangsu now accounts for 65 percent of the China's total output of such devices and more than 20 percent of the world's. And 60 percent of all wind turbine gearboxes made in China come from Jiangsu.

Sales revenue from six emerging industries, including the new energy, biotech, software, service outsourcing and pharmaceutical industries, exceeded 2 trillion yuan in 2010, a 35.8 percent increase from the number recorded for the previous year.

That figure is expected to reach 3 trillion yuan by 2012, Luo said.

China Daily

(China Daily 03/05/2011 page4)