Op-Ed Contributors

Developing country status

By Li Qingyuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-19 09:04

According to the, "one dollar a person a day", poverty standard set by the United Nations, China still has 150 million people living below the poverty line, unevenly distributed in 512 poor counties. Even according to the low-income standard worked out by China in 2009 - which set an annual income of 1,067 yuan as the threshold dividing those who weren't living in poverty from those who were - the country still has about 43 million people living in poverty, a figure equivalent to the whole population of the People's Republic of Korea and five times Singapore's population.

Despite the enormous progress the country has achieved in alleviating poverty, China's impoverished population still remains the world's second largest, only India's is larger.

China's economic growth is still not securely founded, its productivity is comparatively low and the country's agricultural mechanization is still at a relatively low level, with only 71 tractors for every 100 square kilometers of arable land, one-third the world's average, 2003-05 data showed.

While technological innovations have contributed 60 percent to economic growth in developed countries, China's economic growth still mainly depends on traditional technologies and sectors with a low added value. It is calculated that China's consumption of steel, bronze, aluminum, zinc and other metals for every 10,000 yuan of its GDP value is much higher than developed countries, and possibly four to six times the world average. The country's economic output per unit of resources is only one-sixth, one-tenth and one-20th that of Germany, the United States and Japan respectively. For every one standard unit of coal, only $785 economic output can be produced, or 10.3 percent, 16.8 percent and 28.6 percent of Japan, the European Union and the US respectively.

Besides its comparatively low productivity, China's industrial and economic structures also have some worrisome problems, with industrial and agricultural value accounting for 49 percent and 11 percent of its economic output, with the service sector supplying only 40 percent. Whereas in some high-income countries it is the service sector that is creating the lion's share of their economic output.