World Bank’s Systematic Country Diagnostic for China identifies challenges and opportunities for poverty reduction and shared prosperity
BEIJING, February 22, 2018—China can achieve more inclusive and sustainable development with coordinated reforms across a broad range of areas that maximize development impact and address its development challenges, says the World Bank Group’s new Systematic Country Diagnostic for China.
The World Bank Group undertakes a Systematic Country Diagnostic for all its client countries to identify key challenges and opportunities in ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The Diagnostic is prepared in close consultation with national authorities and other key stakeholders, and forms the basis for the Country Partnership Framework, which determines the World Bank Group’s activities in a country over a four to six year period.
Towards a More Inclusive and Sustainable Development highlights China’s unprecedented achievements in rapid economic growth and reducing poverty. Rapid growth was made possible by a wide range of reforms, which transformed a largely rural state-dominated and planned closed economy into becoming a more open and market-based urbanized economy.
China’s growth has been slowing to a “new normal” and economic rebalancing is under way. Managing this transition in a sustainable manner will be critical to achieving the country’s development goals, the report indicates. Policies to increase productivity-led growth by promoting innovation, market competition and the private sector would support the achievements of these goals, says the report.
“China’s remarkable progress in reducing extreme poverty has significantly contributed to the decline in global poverty,” said Hoon S. Soh, World Bank Program Leader for economic policies for China, "The World Bank Group will continue to support China’s goals to eliminate extreme poverty and ensure inclusive and sustainable growth."
Despite the rapid reduction of extreme poverty, China’s remaining poor population remains large in number. The report projects continued strong progress towards eliminating extreme poverty and expects the extreme poverty rate to fall below one percent in 2018, based on the international poverty line of PPP US$1.90 per day. The challenge for China will be to target assistance to the remaining poor while paying attention to those who are vulnerable to falling into poverty; further improvements to the country’s social safety net program will help.
Rapid growth in consumption by the country’s poorer households indicates that they have shared in the country’s growing prosperity. Nevertheless, more can be done to address inequality, even as inequality has been steadily declining since 2008. Reforms of the intergovernmental fiscal system and further reforms in the household registration system could reduce income disparities by closing the rural-urban income gap and ensuring equal access to quality education and health services.
Other recommendations for China include a greater reliance on market mechanisms and mobilizing more private financing to boost green innovation and reduce environmental costs and waste. Reducing air pollution would require China to continue the significant gains in energy efficiency that it has achieved in past decades. It would also require lessening coal consumption while maintaining the rapid expansion of renewable energy, including by reducing the significant curtailment of renewables. Water and soil pollution also pose significant threats to the country’s environment and the health of its citizens.
Reforms of the country’s governance and institutions would underpin China’s transition to more inclusive and sustainable growth. Priorities include strengthening the management of public resources by subnational governments and reforming the government’s cadre management system so that incentives are better aligned with sustainable growth. Such reforms could be complemented by greater bottom-up accountability through enhanced government transparency and information disclosure, expanded engagement with public and private stakeholders, and a more market-oriented regulatory regime.
