(a) resource and environmental constraints on economic and social development intensified
China's per capita resources are relatively scarce, a comprehensive comparison is equivalent to only 1/3 of the world average. per capita arable land area is less than the world per capita of 1/3; per capita freshwater resources of only 1/4 of the world average; minerals and forests and other basic resources for survival, per capita possession of less than 50 percent of the world average. In 2003, China's industrial and domestic wastewater discharges totaled 4.53 million tons, of which 13.48 million tons of chemical oxygen demand emissions, ranking first in the world. The process of industrialization and urbanization determines that our country will be in the rising stage of resource and environmental pressure in the coming decades. Therefore, the conservation of resources, enhance the ability of resources to ensure the sustainable development of the economy and society, in particular, pay attention to the national economy and people's livelihood is of strategic significance to the oil, water, land, the reserves and protection of important mineral resources, has become our future to face the long-term strategic issues.
(2) social development lags behind economic development
One is the weak foundation of public **** health. Rural health care problems are very prominent, farmers are difficult to get medical care, can not afford to see a doctor, due to disease, poverty, poverty phenomenon is relatively common. At present, nearly 100 million people in China do not have access to medical services, 30 million poor people do not have access to timely medical services, and more than 800 township health centers lack basic conditions. The rural cooperative medical system covers less than 10 per cent of the rural population. The distribution of health resources between urban and rural areas is extremely uneven, with cities, which account for 20 per cent of the population, concentrating 80 per cent of health resources. China ranks 188th out of 191 countries and regions in the World Health Organization's index of justice in the distribution of health resources.
The second is that rural education is seriously lagging behind; data from the 2000 national census show that the illiterate population is 85.07 million, with an illiteracy rate as high as 6.72%, basically in rural areas; 40% of the rural labor force is less educated than in elementary school, and 48% is less educated than in junior high schools. Rural education conditions are very low, with primary and secondary schools in dangerous buildings covering an area of more than 37 million square meters, and 431 counties in the country have yet to achieve the "two basic" goal.
Thirdly, the pressure on employment and social security has increased. China's total population is huge, the next 20 years, the population will continue to increase, the labor force population before 2015 will also continue to increase, on the one hand, so that China's rapid economic development has an adequate supply of labor; on the other hand, but also make the pressure on employment increased. 2002, China's proportion of elderly people aged 65 years old and above is 7.3%, according to international standards, began to enter the aging society. It is worth noting that, at present, a large number of young adults in rural areas are flowing to the cities, and the ageing of the population in rural areas has become more serious than in the cities. In the future, as the pace of urbanization accelerates, this trend will become more pronounced. The social security system is still very unsound. The original arrears of old workers in state-owned enterprises have not yet been fully covered, and there is a large funding gap; the coverage of old-age pension, unemployment and medical insurance is still narrow; the sustainability of funding sources is not strong, the proportion of the burden borne by the state, organizations and individuals is not reasonable enough, and the administrative costs are too high; social security work in rural areas is quite weak; and the problems of early retirement that does not meet the requirements and of fraudulent claiming of old-age pension payments have still not been effectively solved.
(3) Economic development faces fiercer international competition
Trade protectionism has intensified. In the next 20 years, trade protectionism is likely to become one of the biggest difficulties facing China's foreign trade. Developed countries, agricultural trade protectionism is rising. And our country is one of the most important targets of anti-dumping cases, and has become the world's most serious damage by trade protectionism. Some developed countries further construct technical barriers and green barriers to prevent the entry of our products. At present, China has become one of the biggest victims of technical barriers and green barriers of developed countries. The international trade protectionism continues to strengthen, the future growth of China's exports to form a greater obstacle.
Enterprises will face more intense international competition, the pressure of survival and development increased. From the manufacturing industry, after more than 20 years of reform and opening up, China's manufacturing level has improved greatly, but on the whole, compared with the international advanced level, there is still a considerable gap. In terms of technical level, large-scale integrated circuits, precision machine tools, CNC machine tools and large-scale machining centers, aircraft and automobile manufacturing and metallurgy, chemical industry, oil mining, coal mining, power generation and other large-scale complete sets of equipment, China and the developed countries, there is a one or two decade gap. In the scale of operation and efficiency, the automobile industry, for example, foreign large and medium-sized automobile manufacturers are more than 1 million units of annual output
, General Motors and Toyota are up to 4 million units respectively. The layout of China's automobile manufacturing industry is extremely decentralized, the annual production of each employee about 1 car, only equivalent to about 1 / 10 of foreign countries. At the same time, the research and development of new products with foreign countries there is a large gap. And then from the service industry, the overall development level is low. China's added value of the service sector only accounted for 32.3% of GDP, lower than the average level of high-income countries about 30 percentage points, lower than the average level of middle-income countries about 20 percentage points, lower than the average level of low-income countries about 10 percentage points. The competitiveness of the emerging service industry is weak. There is a big gap between the competitiveness of modern service industries that are urgently needed for economic and social development, such as basic telecommunications, finance, insurance, consulting, accounting, logistics and distribution, and other industries, compared with those of foreign countries. For example, in 2000, the premium income of our insurance companies was equivalent to about 2% of GDP (depth of insurance), much lower than the world average of 7.8%, and the per capita premium income (insurance density) was only equivalent to 4% of the world average. These gaps will put our enterprises at a disadvantage in the fierce international competition.
(D) national economic security there are hidden dangers
First of all, foreign trade dependence is increasing. With the rapid development of China's economy and opening up to the outside world continues to expand, China's foreign trade dependence increased from 29.8% in 1990 to 60.3% in 2003. Compared with some large countries, China's foreign trade dependence is still relatively high. Secondly, energy and important raw materials are becoming more and more dependent on the international market. In recent years, in the rapid growth of the economy at the same time, the supply and demand of domestic energy and important raw materials appeared to be a large gap, more dependent on the international market to make up for it. For example, last year, China's consumption of iron ore, alumina, about 50 per cent, about 60 per cent of copper resources, about 34 per cent of crude oil are dependent on imports to solve. Thirdly, many key equipment are dependent on imports. Because of China's industry in the traditional industries, low-tech and low value-added industries and products dominate the development of high-tech industries is relatively lagging behind the slow development of the equipment manufacturing industry, in particular, some of the key technical equipment is subject to constraints. According to statistics, 100% of the optical fiber manufacturing equipment, IC chip manufacturing equipment 85%, 80% of the petrochemical manufacturing equipment, car industrial equipment, CNC machine tools, 70%, occupied by imported products. These circumstances indicate that once the international economic environment has undergone major changes, will certainly affect the domestic economic development, and even a serious threat to China's economic security.
The next period, the development of China, is the coexistence of opportunities and challenges. We must be sober to see that the opportunity to accelerate the development only provides the possibility and conditions, the arrival of the period of opportunity does not mean that inevitably lead to prosperity. Historically, because of the loss of opportunity. Lead to backwardness, towards the decline of the lesson is very profound. Seize the historical opportunity to realize the success of the economic take-off experience is also worth our serious reference. Opportunity is fleeting, seize the opportunity, and strive to be strong, will be able to take advantage of the momentum and accelerate development; on the contrary, the opportunity is not aware of the face of the opportunity and do nothing, will slow down the development, resulting in backwardness. The situation is aggressive, not to advance or retreat. This requires us to enhance the sense of urgency, sense of mission and sense of anxiety, based on the current, focusing on the long term, careful planning, co-ordination, to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation to lay a solid foundation.