A United Nations expert on social development says China should continue to work on the equalization of basic public services so as to maintain steady and rapid economic growth. In an interview with CRI's Zheng Chenguang, Thandika Mkandawire, chief of the UN Research Institute for Social Development, also says that in the face of the global economic crisis, countries should work out a social mechanism to better ensure social stability.

Reporter:

Social policy, Economic policy and Political Policy are three key components of any modern society.

Thandika Mkandawire says in developing countries, however, governments tend to place more emphasis on economic policies while placing less importance on social policies.

He says social policy plays the same role as economic policies in terms of ensuring the sound development of a society.

"Social policy is not something you do after development. It's something you should do in conjunction with development. If the discrepancy among the social, the political and the economic policies are too big, you can have a dysfunctional system. It can create tension which can eventually slow down your economic growth."

Citing the recent China Human Development Report issued by the UN, Mkandawire praised China's progress in reducing poverty and increasing life expectancy and literacy over recent decades. But he also says that the country should continue to work to narrow the gap between the rich and poor as well as the development level between urban and rural areas.

He suggests that China should channel more resources to its rural areas, especially educational resources as they will be key to China's readjustment in economic growth mode.

"China has now moved up the sale, to more and more capital intensive and knowledge intensive. And that requires educating the entire population. If you don't do that, it will result in a lack of skilled labor. And I'm sure that you will soon see that China cannot compete only on cheap goods. There are many countries that can offer cheap labor, such as Bangladesh and African Countries. China has to move up. And to move up, China should invest a lot in human capital."

The global financial downturn has brought about social crisis in many countries. Mkandawire says this is the time when social mechanism should be able to ensure social stability.

"China is aware that this is model built on the assumption of very high growth. But you have to build in social mechanisms to manage crisis if there's a slowdown. We saw in South Korea and Taiwan, that when there was a crisis, they didn't have protection. That could create social problems."

Mkandawire also hailed China's stimulus package that aims to improve rural infrastructure as well as other efforts to ensure rural health care and increase farmers' incomes.

Zheng Chenguang, CRI news.