Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction, And Sustainability In China

The Relationship Between Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction, and Sustainability

Question:

Discuss About The Economic Growth Obvious Reduction Poverty?

Economic growth refers to an economic condition where income of the nations shows an upward rising trend. There are several short term benefits associated with increasing economic growth. With economic growth there is an obvious reduction in poverty. As recorded in World Bank report currently there are 1.4 billion who are below the revised poverty line ($1.25 per day). Poverty rate has fallen nearly 25% between 1981 and 2005 (globalissu.org 2017).China has accounted the most notable reduction in poverty. Other developing countries have also made progress in reducing poverty. The source of poverty reduction is the rapid growth of industrialization or manufacturing. This is putting pressure on world’s natural resource use. In the environment program in UN, International Resource Panel suggested that primary resource extraction has almost tripled in last 40 years (huffingtonpost.org 2017).  This brings the issue of sustainability. Present paper focuses on sustainability in light of two major issues of poverty reduction and resource use in context of one of the most progressing developing world, China.

China has made remarkable improvement in its poverty statistics. Since 1981, poverty in China has declined from 85% to 15.9% bringing almost 600 millio0n people above the China. China alone is a significant contributor of world’s poverty reduction. Excluding China poverty world poverty fell only by 10% while including China the figure is 25% (globalissue.org 2017). In the poverty reduction, the contribution of manufacturing industries is remarkable. China is one of the largest manufacturing economies. The ability of the nation to deliver low cost material and labour has made the economy internationally competitive. China is successful in making a radical transformation from producer of a low quality cheap product to an advanced one. Manufacturing sector in China contributes to employment generation in China. Employment in manufacturing sector in China was recorded as 32.4 million in 2000 that has increased to become 52.4 million in n2014. Manufacturing employment more than doubled in between 2003 to 2014 (weforum.org 2017). The share of manufacturing in total employment rose from 15 percent to 20 percent. With a massive growth in manufacturing sector emission of harmful gases has also increased in China.  The intensity of carbon din oxide emission from manufacturing process used in China has grown up.  This leads to environment degradation.

The manufacturing industries do not stand still and just let the things happen. Manufacturer in China have undertaken steps for reducing emission by employing advanced technology.  The manufacturing industry now entered in the stage of strategic innovation (Ganiyusufoglu, Ö.S. 2015). In 2006, China has developed a green manufacturing strategy in an attempt to achieve sustainability for manufacturing sector. In 2008, legal support has been extended to remanufacturing of parts of motor vehicle or machineries or tools used for construction. Special energy saving strategies has been taken for developing a eco friendly technology. Planning of green manufacturing in considered as one of the three major projects in science and technology in the field of manufacturing (Yuan 2016)

The Success of China in Reducing Poverty through Economic Growth

Though initiatives are taken to accomplish the goal of environmentally sustainable economic growth, conflict still remains between the goal of economic growth and sustainability. The question remains about sustainable pattern of development and target of poverty eradication. In China the population living below the poverty line are 122.38 million as recorded in 2011 (sciencedaily.com 2017).  There is interrelation between poverty and environmental problems. China has just begun to progress in industrialization and hence operating in an early stage. In this stage adapting advanced technology for reducing emission of harmful gases increases cost of the industries because of a lack of scale economies

The economic boom in China is associated with destruction of land and other economic resources. With urbanization and industrialization in developing world there is transformation of land use from agricultural purpose to purpose of urbanization. Changes in urban land have been taking place in China. The transformation of land use is seen as an outcome of structural change and resulted economic growth.  Development of urbanization and industrialization have possessed serious environmental problem.  In the past 20 year more than 200 million people in China has moved from rural to urban areas accelerating the need for urbanization and hence creating pressure on limited land resources (diplomat.com 2013). China has a vast area of forest. However, growth and development strategies are putting threat on forest resource. Only 3.34% of total forest resource remains intact (unep.org 2017). Forests have been destroyed for bui9liding factories and making more areas available for urbanization. Rapid use of sea and water resources is another major concern for China. Two resulted problem from economic growth in China are water scarcity and water pollution. Shortage of water in urban areas in China is recorded as 60 billion cubic meter per year (Wang et al. 2014). Small industries in China area responsible for creating water pollution. Non degradable and toxic wastes generated from these industries mixes in water and pollute it. As a result of water pollution the availability of drinking water is reduced and water shortage has become a severe problem especially in northern and north western region of China.

To resolve the imbalances in natural resources strategies are designed by the government. A legalize framework is designed with enforcement of Land Management Act (LMA).  There are different administrative sections for looking after this matter. Attention is given on improving the quality of land. As land become more fertile it can be used more effectively for agricultural purpose. In order to protect forest resources and conserve it the major focus is on forestation by planting more trees. China has launched Natural Forest Protection Program with an aim to improve balance between environment and ecosystem. Proposed investment for this plan is 102.9 billion Yuan. The goal has almost achieved with an increase in plantation to 2.66 million by 2009, 101.23 million forests are taken under management and protection of forests. 621,500 workers associated with logging or other forest related activities and timber products in the supply chain get displaced (Qian and Liu 2014).   New water conservation projects have undertaken in China to conserve its sea and marine resources. In 2016, new 20 conservation projects are undertaken by the government. 114.7 billion Yuan are invested in China. Among the 27 projects initiated in China 21 were designed for western and Central China. This implies the issue of sustainability for use of natural resources are not neglected in China.

The Impact of China’s Manufacturing Sector on the Environment

Despite measures taken for a sustainable use of natural resources China still faces challenges in pursuing growth along with sustainable use of natural resources. There are inadequacies of existing strategies that fall short of in achieving sustainable development (chinadaily.com 2017).  The problem of China is two folds. Availability of natural resource is low as compared to that in world average. The shares of fresh water, usable land, forest are 28.1%, 32.3% and 14.3% respectively of the world averages. Secondly, with a rapid population growth rate and excessive demand for natural resources are putting resource constraint for the economy. Legal system and traditional management model are incorporated for looking this issue. However, these arrangements contradict with market economy model.  Administrative intervention in resource use creates results in inefficiency in resource allocation (Panayotou 2016). China should take proper sets of policies to maintain ecological balances and brings a sustainable economic growth for nation.;

Conclusion

In the world of developing economies china is making remarkable improvement in achieving an economic growth. Along with economic growth China is successful in reducing is poverty rate. In fact, in the world average poverty reduction maximum contribution is made by China. Poverty reduction is supplemented with a rapid growth of manufacturing industry. The manufacturing sector generates huge employment opportunities. This helps to reduce unemployment and persistent poverty. The counter impact of manufacturing growth is on environment. The quality of environment degrades in China. Though steps are taken to address environmental issues there are still question on sustainability. The economic growth cannot be brought without using natural resources. In order to escape poverty, people shifts from rural to urban areas. The process of urbanization undertakes not only bare land but forest land as well. This creates pressure on forest resources and disturbs ecological balances. Sea and water resources are also in danger. Industrial wastes are discharged to nearby rivers and finally mix with sea water hampering the marine lives.  The incidence of water pollution and water shortage become very common in China. Measures have been taken to conserve the natural resources. However, there are inadequacies in these measure and hence fail to address the issue of sustainable development properly.

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