The Process and Problems of Industrialization and Urbanization in China: The Status of the Tenth Five-Year Plan and Recommendations for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan

The developmental trends of China's industrialization and urbanization were good during the period of the tenth five-year plan. During the ninth five-year plan China's industrialization process evolved from the first phase to the second phase of middle-stage industrialization. Compared with industrialization, China's urbanization has developed more rapidly. In the future, China's industrialization and urbanization will face many problems, including lack of capability to self-innovate in industrial technologies, significant limitations in natural resources, heavy pressure from employment and population migration to nonagricultural sectors, an imbalance in development among regions, an imbalance in quality and quantity of urbanization development, lack of coordination of urbanization and industrialization, significant numbers of employees of village and township enterprises "waiting for urbanization," and farmers migrating to cities for employment. These are profound problems requiring resolution. Continuously promoting China's industrialization and urbanization will become more costly and difficult. During the period of the eleventh five-year plan, China will undertake important projects, such as promoting China's capacity for self-innovation, optimizing the industrial structure, transforming the means of economic growth, coordinating development among regions, cities, and rural areas, increasing migrant-worker income, promoting urban-management levels, and developing tertiary industries.