By Jiang Yu, Department of Macroeconomic Research, Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC)

Report No 76, 2014 (Total No 4575)

Summary:

Market expansion and social development are two trends that can complement each other, and they develop in a coordinated way as an important part of the improvement of modern state institutional system. The Chinese consider social development more important than economic development and the socialist market economy system was built on fairness and justice, which lead to China's "economic miracle" and put China on a different development path from most other developing countries.

But China's social development has fallen behind and has become a bottleneck in economic transformation and improvements, harming China's reforms. Social development can also help economic development and provide a foundation for political reforms. So improving social development can help solve urgent problems in people's livelihood and result in more comprehensive reforms. It can also promote economic structure reform by providing a social foundation for the market economy and greater power for reforms.