国内英语新闻:China's endeavor to boost people's livelihoods, social equity

BEIJING, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- China is poised to further improve its people's livelihoods and promote social equity in 2011, the inaugural year of implementing its development blueprint for the 12th Five-Year-Plan period.

Only with deep respect and extensive care for people's wills and interests can a ruling party have inexhaustible support from the people and the country, under the leadership of such a party, can accomplish remarkable achievements in development.

China, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), is prepared to further deepen reforms in education, health care, housing, public cultural services and enhance investment in people's livelihoods in the new year.

Also, more attention of the authorities will be given to protecting the legal rights of China's vulnerable groups and ordinary workers, as well as fulfilling the general public's expectations for a better life.

Thanks to the strong leadership of the CPC, China has succeeded in keeping a strong pace in social and economic development over the past year, which marks the perfect conclusion of its well-implemented plan for the last five years (2006-2010).

In 2010, China had a relatively rapid economic development. It picked up steps towards economic restructuring and achieved a seventh consecutive year of growth for China's grain output, as well as bettering people's livelihoods, deepening reforms and opening up.

China successfully stood the test of natural disasters, including widespread droughts in the southwest region, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake and a huge landslide in northwest Qinghai and Gansu provinces.

The government's quick and efficient responses to these emergencies have, for another time, demonstrated the superiority of China's socialism and the great achievements in China's reform and opening up.

The country also held the Shanghai World Expo which, attracting 246 participating countries and international organizations and a record number of 73 million visitors, has been hailed as the largest ever such event.

Further, the 16th Asian Games held in the southern China city of Guangzhou drew some ten thousand athletes from 45 countries and regions in Asia to compete.

The two events provided a splendid picture of how Chinese culture and the world's other cultures co-exist in harmony and displayed a broad-minded and open image of China.

All those experiences and achievements China earned in 2010 has set a strong foundation for China to further its reforms and development in the forthcoming five years.

A critical period for China to build a well-off society in an all-around way, the coming five to ten years will be a more difficult phase of China's reforms, which will be marked by the interweaving of short-term and long-term problems, structural and systematic problems, as well as domestic and international challenges.

That means China will be faced with a more urgent and challenging task in transforming its economic growth mode, improving people's livelihoods and safeguarding social stability.

But, basically, China is still within a period of strategic opportunities for its development. China should grasp opportunities for development while tackling challenges.

In 2011, China is set to speed up its economic restructuring, with more attention directed to stabilizing its overall price level.

China will step up its move towards a coherent and sustainable economic development, maintaining a balance between the speed of development on the one hand, and the economic structure and the quality and efficiency of economic growth, on the other.

It is convinced that China, with a strong CPC leadership, will make greater achievements in development in a scientific way and well resolve social and economic conflicts and disputes in 2011, thus advancing the socialism with Chinese characteristics into a brighter future.