Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2021

Economic Development between the Two Centenary Goals: Tasks, Challenges and Strategies

(Abstract)

Liu Wei and Chen Yanbin

Since the founding of the PRC in 1949, and especially since reform and opening up, China has achieved miraculous economic growth, to the surprise of the world. The first centenary goal, building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, has been completed. Faced with the second centenary goal, China needs to make clear the four-stage task of economic development. First, to vault over the middle-income trap and become one of the high-income countries at the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan. Second, to double real GDP per capita from the 2020 level and reach the level of moderately developed countries by 2035. Third, to quadruple real GDP per capita from the 2020 level and reach the average level of developed countries by 2050. Fourth, to sustain the expansion of the size of middle-income groups and basically achieve common prosperity for all the people. In this process, China will face four major challenges: the weakening momentum of economic growth, the contradiction between the speed and quality of growth, the declining rate of income growth among middle-income groups and a more challenging external environment. Therefore, in order to build a new strategy for the second centenary goal, China needs to make full use of its unique advantages, make a rational plan for further development, implement new development concepts and construct new development patterns, and accelerate the construction of China’s system of economic theory.