Home

The Economic and Structural Reform Programme (ESRP) is a technical cooperation programme between the People’s Republic of China and the Federal Republic of Germany with the overall objective to support macroeconomic reform policies, in order to contribute to social cohesion and ecologically sustainable development in China. The programme is implemented by GTZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Associated with ESRP is the Sino-German Cooperation Project on Leadership Training on Environmental and Climate Issues. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) under the framework of the Ministry’s International Climate Protection Initiative (IKI). GTZ holds the overall responsibility for the German involvement in the programme and is working with a wide range of partners to successfully meet the programme goals.

Despite rapid economic growth, the PRC faces growing regional and social disparities as well as challenges of the WTO accession in 2001, such as increasing unemployment in agriculture and individual capital-intensive industrial sectors through foreign competition and a worsening of the East-West gap. The cooperation programme ESRP is based on the principles of a social and ecological market economy and aims at contributing to the further development of a competitive, well-regulated, and sustainable economic system in China by deepening economic, social and structural reforms, adjusted to the national targets of a socially and regionally balanced economic development, and responding to regional and international challenges, whilst giving high priority to the social dimension of the development and reform process.

ESRP was established in 2004 with the primary focus on institutions and capacity development, integrating three main technical cooperation projects: Cooperation with National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Cooperation with Research Office of the State Council (SRO), and Cooperation with China Institute for Reform and Development (CIRD). In October, 2005, the cooperation programme was expanded to include the project “Training for Administrative Authorities”. As of 2008, ESRP was restructured to comprise five focus areas, focusing on topics belonging to the thematic corridor of economic, social and structural reform:

•  Focus area 1: Macroeconomic Policy and Structural Reform;
•  Focus area 2: Decision-Making Documents on Economic and Social Policy;
•  Focus area 3: Research on Economic, Social and Administrative Reform;
•  Focus area 4: Development of Distribution Systems in Rural Areas;
•  Focus area 5: Sustainable Regional Development

ESRP cooperates with institutions of utmost importance for China’s economic policy reform such as NDRC, SRO, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs (OLGFE) as well as research institutions and Chinese universities.

ESRP's main activities are to promote policy dialogues between China, Germany, and other European countries, as well as Latin American countries, and to offer policy advice and expert hearings. ESRP prepares working papers, compiles studies and publications, and develops policy proposals in the field of economic and social reform. Although the programme primarily focuses on the macro-level, case studies and pilot activities are carried out in selected provinces. The programme aims at increasing its overall impact through enhancing the interaction between the focus areas. Both ESRP and each of its partners should highly benefit from the synergies produced by connecting topics and instruments.