Looking back, looking ahead

Most targets and provisions set in China's 11th Five-Year Plan have been met, and you can find the details below. But the nation still faces great challenges, including its economic reliance on investment and exports, its unbalanced development between urban and rural areas, and a widening wealth gap.

The central government lowered its target for annual GDP growth to 7 percent in its draft of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), which is expected to be discussed in the annual session of the National People's Congress, which begins on Saturday. In the new blueprint, attention will be paid to improving people's living standards and to restructuring the economy, upgrading industry, reducing emissions and saving energy. The plan will maintain a strategy of expanding domestic demand and will seek a new model of economic growth that would include a greater contribution by consumption.

China implemented its first Five-Year Plan in 1953. Except for a period of economic adjustment from 1963 to 1965, it has used these plans as blueprints and guidelines for national economic development. - CHINA DAILY