950828

Economic gap

widens between

coastal, inland China

BEIJING: The growing economic gap between China's coastal and inland regions will continue to widen until at least 2010, posing one of the government's toughest challenges, a report said Monday.

Central and western China, which makes up 89 percent of the country's territory and 64 percent of its population, has fallen way behind the eastern and southern seaboard regions in economic development over the past 15 years.

"To bridge the gap is one of the toughest challenges for China in its drive to realise modernisation of the entire nation and common prosperity," Hu Angang, a senior development researcher, was quoted as saying by the Xinhua news agency, adding:

"It is also one of the harshest tasks the Chinese government is facing."

According to the deputy director of the State Planning Commission's department of land and regional planning, Song Yuansheng, the government is seeking to shift the focus in capital investment, distribution of key construction projects and policy preferences to central and western areas.

Policy-oriented banks will gradually increase the amount of preferential loans to the same regions, as well as investment aimed at improving infrastructural facilities and tapping mineral resources, Song said.

However, other experts cited by the agency said the gap between China's have and have-nots "will continue to widen in the coming few years"

A "turning point" may arrive by 2010, when the eastern regions enter a stage of steady economic development, while growth in inland areas quickens.-AFP