China, economically extremely backward before 1949, has become one of the world's major economic powers with the greatest potential, and the overall living standard has reached that of a fairly well-off society. In the 31 years following reform and opening-up in 1979 in particular, China's economy developed at an unprecedented rate, and that momentum has been held steady into the 21st century. In 2010, the government further strengthened and improved its macro control, and the economy entered its best ever development period of recent years. The gross domestic product (GDP) for 2010 amounted to 39.79 trillion yuan (approximately 6.04 trillion US dollars).

China adopts the "five-year-plan" strategy for economic development. The 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) was outstandingly successful, and the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) has set the following major targets:

Efforts should be made to maintain stable and relatively fast economic growth. The country will work to keep prices basically stable, create more jobs, bring more balance to China's international payments and boost the quality of economic growth, the proposal said.

More work should be done to achieve major development in economic restructuring. The household consumption ratio will rise and coordinated development in rural and urban regions will be enhanced. Energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product and carbon dioxide emissions will fall markedly, and the ecological environment will be improved noticeably, according to the proposal.

The country will strive to universally raise people's incomes at a relatively fast pace and keep the rise in people's incomes, economic growth and improvement in labor productivity in pace. Wages for low-income earners will rise drastically and the amount of people living in poverty will be reduced greatly, the proposal said.

More efforts will be made to enhance social construction. A service system that covers both urban and rural residents will be perfected and the people's education level will see a steady rise. The country will also accelerate the development of cultural undertakings and cultural industry.