Public goods and public services will be an important driving force for China's future economic growth.

Premier Li Keqiang mentioned in the government work report that he will create a "double engine" for mass entrepreneurship, innovation and the increase of public goods and public services, so as to promote the speed of development, increase quantity and improve quality, and realize the quality and efficiency upgrading of China's economy.

The background of such adjustment is that the traditional driving force of economic growth is weakening. We must intensify structural reform, transform the traditional engine and create a new one.

"During the past economic and social development, China's social development was relatively slow, which was mainly reflected in the insufficient supply of public goods and services." Song Li, director of the Economic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, told China Youth Daily.

This shortage of supply has been evident in recent years: there has been a huge gap between demand and supply in public service fields such as affordable housing, medical care, education, social security and environmental protection.

"The obvious thing is medical treatment. Patients have to wait for a long line before they can get to the number, and wait for a long line before they can see the doctor. The doctor has only a few minutes to face the patient." Ma Jun, a * * * economist with the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China, said that this is a sign of the great shortage of public service supply.

Another outstanding performance is environmental protection. In the opinion of many experts in the environmental protection industry, in order to achieve the goal of pollution control, environmental protection investment should account for 2%~3% of GDP, but China's current investment in environmental protection accounts for 1.6%~1.8% of GDP. "This is far below the level of developed countries in the world." Ma Jun said.

As early as 2011, economist Gu Shengju said that according to data, China's education, medical care and social security expenditure accounted for only 29.2% of government expenditure, 20 percentage points lower than that of countries with the same level of development.

Some experts believe that China has entered an era of shortage of public goods and services.

"This is the result of our country's' first hand 'economic and social development over the past years. The pursuit of rapid economic growth has taken up too much public resources, resulting in a large amount of arrears in the supply of public goods and services." Song Li said that now it is time to make up these debts.

Song Li gave an example: "In Beijing, Shanghai and other mega cities, it has become so difficult to attend kindergartens, from which we can see how much our public goods and public services are in arrears." In rural areas, there are also huge debts in drinking water and garbage disposal.

In this government work report, seven major projects have been included: shantytowns and dilapidated buildings reconstruction, urban underground pipe network and other livelihood projects, railway, highway, inland waterway and other major transportation projects in the central and western regions, agricultural projects such as water conservancy, high standard farmland, information, power, oil and gas and other major network projects, clean energy and oil and gas mineral resources security projects, traditional industrial technology transformation and other projects, energy conservation, environmental protection and ecological construction projects. None of the seven major projects is not to increase effective investment in public goods to meet people's rapidly growing demand for public goods and services.

The government work report also mentioned that this year, the central budget investment increased to 477.6 billion yuan, but the government does not play a "one-man show". It needs to more stimulate the vitality of private investment and guide social capital to invest in more areas. For example, the railway investment should be maintained at more than 800 billion yuan, the mileage of newly put into production should be more than 8000 kilometers, and the electronic toll collection network of expressways should be basically realized throughout the country, so that transportation can truly become a pioneer in development.

There is no doubt that these investments have increased public goods and provided public services, which are urgently needed by the masses sooner or later.

"In the public sphere, some are pure public goods and services, and some are quasi public goods and services, but they all have strong externalities, and need government intervention, or direct investment, or policies to guide investment." Ma Jun said.

In Ma Jun's view, China's insufficient supply of public goods and public services is also an opportunity for investment, which is where the potential of economic growth is enhanced and will become an important engine of economic growth.

"For example, the medical needs of the elderly are four to eight times that of young people." Ma Jun told reporters that the growth of demand for medical services will be far higher than the growth of GDP. The same is true in the field of environmental protection. The growth rate of many environmental protection industries can reach 13%~15%, and the investment potential is very large.

Of course, there are some things that need attention. Song Li told reporters that over the years, China has invested a lot of money in infrastructure construction, built many highways and built many airports. "The society has some concerns about the duplication and waste of infrastructure construction, which cannot be said to be completely unreasonable.".

However, in the central and western regions of China, the investment potential of infrastructure construction is still great. Compared with the eastern economically developed regions, the infrastructure construction in the central and western regions is relatively lagging behind. This kind of lag not only causes inconvenience to the local residents, but also restricts the local economic and social development.

Song Li told the reporter that the problem of public goods and public services in China is that the overall level is low, its growth rate lags behind the economic growth rate, and the public services are not balanced among regions. All these need the government to guide from the policy level, accelerate development, and promote the equalization of public goods and services.

In recent years, the supply of public goods and services has improved, but in the opinion of many experts, there is still a lot of room for development. To get more room for development, the government needs to come up with policies.

"In fact, the capital market has begun to focus on public goods and public services." Ma Jun said that the public sector still needs to remove some obstacles to allow capital to enter better. For example, through open access, capital can enter smoothly and obtain corresponding returns. Only in this way can the supply of public goods and services increase, fill this gap, and become one of the real "dual engines" to help China's economic development.