China's economy has kept growing fast and achieved positive results for the macro-control adjustment. Looking ahead, what will the development of the national economy bring to people?

Income

Data from the National Statistics Bureau shows a 7 percent actual rise of disposable income of urban residents per capita and an increase of 11.4 percent of farmers' cash income per capita. What is special in this fact is that farmers' income spiraled up by more than 10 percent which is faster than that of urban residents. It also represents the most aggressive leap since 1990s.

However, objective factors are behind this. The central government's policy of "give more, take less, and relax the control" to adress the "three agriculture related issues", that is, farmers, agriculture and rural area, is a special spur to boost farmers' income.

Farmers are free from about 22 billion yuan tax due to tax-free and tax reduction policies. They are 30 percent less burdened generally than before. In addition, about 600 million farmers engaged in grain production have got 11.2 billion yuan of direct subsidies.

Experts believe the momentum of increase in people's income, either in urban or in rural areas, will remain in 2005. Farmers will continue to reap the benefits of further implementation of the tax-cuts or tax-free policy in rural areas.

However, the foundation for further upturn of the agriculture and farmers¡¯ income is still weak. And the effect of the policy will fade away. It is not easy to see an even bolder stride of farmers' income next year.

CPI

China's consumer price index (CPI) has kept high this year. The first three quarters witnessed a surge of 4.1 percent. People are facing higher prices of grain, energy and housing. Director of the National Statistics Bureau Li Deshui thinks there is still considerable pressure of a upward movement of the prices.

The State Development and Reform Commission attributed this to the new round of economic cycle, changes on demand and supply of grain, overheating investment in some sectors and areas and rising prices on the world market.

Things seem to go smoothly for this year's grain production. Good quality winter wheat has been sowed faster in larger coverage of land. This, plus the further implementation of various policies of the central government propping up the agriculture, will ease off the supply pressure next year as long as the weather is good.

China has suffered from tight supply of coal, power, oil and transportation this year. Residents of some areas have to pay more for their bill of water, power, coal and oil. Although the government's macro-control measures have made the situation easier to some extent, the tight supply will continue until next year.

Commercial housing projects were sold 11.7 percent more expensive on average from Jan. to Oct. . Liu Fuyuan, Vice President of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research with the State Development and Reform Commission regarded the housing sector a pillar industry in China. He said a faster pace of urbanization process would turn a large number of farmers into urban residents whose need of housing would offer ample space of development for the housing sector.

Employment

By the end of September, the newly added employment had reached 7.74 million which was 86 percent of the target for the whole year. The unemployment registered at 4.2 percent, 0.1 percentage point lower than the end of last year. If this progress continues, the employment will be higher than what has been set for the year.

Employment depends much on the growth of the national economy. Forecast of China's economy for next year stands above 8 percent. According to the employment elasticity, every one percentage point of the growth of the national economy brings 700,000 to 800,000 new positions. Therefore, the rise of the national economy will create 6 million new jobs.

What's more, thanks to the high attention of the central government, the favorable policies to encourage re-employment will be further carried out and the tertiary industry, especially the communities services will be further developed. All of this will make it possible for new employment next year as good as or even better than this year.

However, the employment is still under great pressure. In the 2 to 3 years to follow, urban areas have to offer jobs for 24 million people every year while the vacancies are expected to be 10 million. In addition to that, 150 million surplus rural labor force need to be transferred.