Want China Times
Date: 2015-06-22
By: Staff Reporter
China’s massive population and economy will help it to escape the middle-income trap and become
People at a job fair in Taiyuan, Shanxi province. (File photo/CNS)
a high-income country, according to Li Xunlei, an expert at the Shanghai Finance Institute.
In an op-ed piece in the Shanghai-based Economic Observer, Lee said China has similar characteristics to countries such as South Korea and Japan, which have escaped the middle-income trap.
The middle-income trap is a phenomenon in which a rapidly growing economy stagnates at middle-income levels and fails to advance into the ranks of high-income countries.
The World Bank classifies countries with a gross national income of US$12,616 and above as high-income countries, Li said, noting that China’s GNI per capita stood at US$5,740 in 2012.
The long working hours in China — 45 hours a week on average in 2012 — are evidence that the Chinese people are hard-working, a characteristic that is shaped by the lack of resources, namely farmlands, Li said. [FULL STORY]
