CHINA'S Ninth Five-Year Plan will make special provisions to redress the imbalance between east and west, according to Vice-Premier Wu Bangguo.
The master plan for the 1996-2000 period, being drafted by a team reporting to President Jiang Zemin, will be endorsed at the forthcoming fifth plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee.
It is understood the leadership will bow to intense lobbying by cadres from central and western provinces for 'special policies' to close the gap between them and the rich coast.
While touring Qinghai and Gansu, two of China's poorest provinces, during the past week, Mr Wu, a former party secretary of Shanghai, admitted that the gap between the coast and hinterland had widened.
'The party and the central Government will offer favourable treatments towards western China in fund allocation, project approval, and other economic policies during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period,' Xinhua (the New China News Agency) last night quoted Mr Wu as saying.
Mr Wu, also a Politburo member, praised the rapid economic growth achieved by the two provinces.