Center for Global Business and the Economy

The Competitive Advantage of China

China is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world, with organized society existing for more than 10,000 years. Since 1979, when China's reform era began, the country reduced the number of its citizens living in poverty by 200 million people and achieved a six-fold increase in per capita income. China accounted for nearly 4 percent of the worldwide gross domestic product in 2004, and had become the sixth-largest economy and the leading recipient of foreign direct investment. While these results are impressive, this is only the beginning for China. As the most populous nation in the world, China needs to create 100 million new jobs by 2013 and quadruple its GDP by 2020 to achieve and sustain a reasonable standard of living for its people.