(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-04 07:45

It does not matter if a society has problems and impediments to overcome in its social progress. But it does matter if we are carried away by what we have achieved to overlook the problems and impediments.

The blue book on current social conditions issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences every year provides a thorough analysis of our social progress. We get a clear picture of where the current impediments are from the one released yesterday.

Such an analysis can act as a reminder to the policymakers on how they should have an overall view of the situation and how they should find solutions to the problems.

For example, the analysis about the country's employment situation points out the looming difficulties quite a proportion of university graduates face to find jobs, and the lack of highly-skilled technical workers against an increase of 9 million jobs in several consecutive years.

Of the 5 million university graduates in 2007, 1 million still remain unemployed, according to the analysis. Therefore, how to help these graduates to find jobs and create more jobs for even more graduates this year will be high on the working agendas of both central and local governments.

Of all the problems and impediments noted in the book, what is most noteworthy is an analysis on how the majority of the public feels about changes in their lives and overall social development. It shows that the degree of satisfaction of urban residents with social development is declining while that of their rural counterparts is rising.

This suggests that more social benefits should be extended to low-income urban families while further implementing our rural policies to increase the income of rural residents.

Undoubtedly, locating where impediments are and helping formulate policies to solve them coincides with the requirements of building a harmonious society and concern of the central authorities over the livelihood of the general public.

To keep tracking new problems and impediments will hopefully form a virtuous circle for the country's social development.

Hopefully such analysis of social problems and impediments will be even more authentic by being based on detailed and scientific surveys and investigations.

(China Daily 01/04/2008 page8)