China is seeking to create an additional 45 million jobs over the next five years in a bid to reduce the country's growing income gap, a government report said Tuesday.
According to the draft of China's new five-year economic plan, the Chinese government will put its priority on creating jobs and thus
boosting the number of people employed during the 2011-2015 period.
According to a government estimate, the number of unemployed across the country was 200 million last year. The figure does not include those who are institutionalized and those serving in the military.
The move comes as the world's No. 2 economy is moving toward adopting policies intended to increase domestic consumption and cut its heavy reliance on exports.
The shift in the growth policy is also aimed at reducing the income disparity, which has widened despite its breakneck economic growth.
China recorded its widest rural-urban income gap in 2009 since the country launched its economic reform in 1978. The equivalent figure
for 2010 is yet to be released.
The urban per-capita net income stood at 17,175 yuan (US$2,615.4), compared with 5,153 yuan in the countryside, with the urban-to-rural
income ratio being 3.33:1, according to the latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics.
A report from the World Bank showed that the Gini coefficient of inequality in China is 0.47, its highest in the last 60 years. When China began its reform and opening in 1978, the figure was just 0.18 percent.
The top 1 percent of Chinese families is estimated to own 41.4 percent of the wealth in the country.
Speaking at the annual session of the country's quasi-parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), on Saturday, Chinese premier Wen
Jiabao said that "readjusting income distribution in a reasonable manner is both a long-term task and an urgent issue to address at present."
Wen said three major measures will be taken this year -- increasing the basic income of low-income people in both urban and rural areas, putting more effort into adjusting income distribution, and vigorously overhauling and standardizing income distribution.