China will take steps to make its currency and interest rates more market-based, boost overseas investment and plough more State funds into industry as part of a plan to keep GDP on track and double in size by 2020, says a Reuters reports. Excerpts:

Economists said the reiterations in General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Hu Jintao's speech on Nov 8 were important given an economic downdraft.

"Because there's been so much talk about growth slowing in China, reiterating the target in this speech was important. But the numbers are not new news," Tim Condon, head of Asian economic research at ING in Singapore, said.

Income disparity has become a severe issue in China over the last decade. About 13 percent of China's 1.3 billion people still live on less than $1.25 a day, according to the United Nations Development Programme, and average urban disposable income is just 21,810 yuan ($3,500) a year.

On the other hand, China has 2.7 million US-dollar millionaires and 251 billionaires, according to the Hurun Report.

Addressing this dichotomy should be China's top priority, said Gary Liu, executive deputy director of the think tank CEIBS Lujiazui Institute of International Finance.

(China Daily 11/13/2012 page10)