Editor's note: What should the country focus on in its 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015)? This article is part of China Daily's New Roadmap series that brings readers the views of experts on this subject.

China's economy is relatively integrated into the world market and keeps growing rapidly, but the country's social development has been left far behind. At the same time, China has become the largest foreign creditor of the United States.

This rare phenomenon, a poor country financing the richest and most powerful nation in the world, highlights the serious imbalance between China's economic and social development.

Whether China can correct this imbalance over the next five years, by increasing investment in social development, will have a great impact on the country's overall development.

But, economic development directly affects social development in at least four aspects.

First, the great rise in productivity must be supported by strong spending; a century ago the Ford Motor Company significantly increased its employees' salaries so that they could afford their cars. In return, Ford sold more.

Second, economic development needs to provide the basic requirements for a high quality of life, such as clean water, convenient transport and modern information technology, which can be enjoyed by the whole society.