U.N. 's Goals in China

Objective 6: "Help create an internal market without regional barriers facilitating the free flow of goods, capital, information and human resources"

The UN system will assist the Government in putting into place mechanisms which will enable a more free flow of resources within the country, from the centre to the local levels and among different regions.

Under China’s previous central planning system, the distribution of all resources was planned and organised through a top-down approach, and the State took responsibility for all discrepancies. As the country moves towards the socialist market economy, there is a need to take a more efficient approach to resource flow in order to promote rational resource utilisation and local economic growth. Currently, there are many instances where new and improved policies and working methods are in place, such as the new grain distribution policy, but knowledge of its existence and need for behavioural change of all actors in the market have still to be disseminated.

Promoting IT - The UN will focus on demonstrating the wide outreach of the IT revolution and its benefits to local development. The population’s easy access to TV (more than 80% of China’s population has access to TV) can be exploited more fully and for development purposes as a powerful communication tool with the introduction of Internet devices in complementarity. The UN system will help develop preferential investment policies for IT for poor areas and address access and use differential between men and women, boys and girls. This requires renewed efforts in expanding telecommunications infrastructure to overcome the low penetration of telephones and computers, strengthening local area networks, and producing new information services. Other key strategic interventions include assisting the government build capacities in local governments to enable them assume their new roles as enabler and regulator rather than provider of services, and reform the planning process at the local level in line with changes taking place at the centre, to support a more thorough transition towards the socialist market economy and to address current discrepancies and inequities. Other UN interventions include: recognise, support and protect migrant labour and their migrant families; and deregulate in-country capital flow and the distribution of goods and services.