China To Begin Third Five-Year Plan

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30945, 29 December 1965, Page 11

China To Begin Third Five-Year Plan

(N Z. Press Association—Copyright)

HONG KONG, Dec. 27.

Reports from Peking today indicate that China plans to launch its third five-year plan on schedule next year.

In separate articles, Hsinhua, the Chinese press agency, announced that two key industrial centres, Shanghai and Tientsin, were fully prepared for “heavy tasks” set by the new flve-year plan. Hsinhua earlier reported that China had exceeded ahead of schedule this year's targets for production of iron and steel products, power and light industrial products. No figures were mentioned, but China's draft plan for 1965 called for an 11 per cent increase in industrial output. China’s second five-year plan, launched in 1958, was superseded by the “leap forward” programme, which aimed to achieve production

miracles but created economic chaos and plunged industrial and agricultural output into a decline which reached its low point In 1961. Economic analysts believe that while Chine hopes to set in motion a steady production increase in heavy industry after four years of “consolidation,” as excesses of the ill-fated leap forward were corrected, goals of the new fiv£year plan are likely to be modest *

Peking's planners appear more cautious today than in 1958. At the same time they are subject to basic limitations reflected in a continuing campaign for economy in the use of raw materials and {finished industrial products.