BEIJING, March. 4 -- Although it has maintained rapid economic growth in the past years, China cannot be pleased about its failure to accomplish some major targets by the 2005 deadline, which has revealed kinks in economic and social development.

    According to the comprehensive 10th Five-Year (2001-05) Plan, the total amount of cultivated land should remain no less than 128 million hectares by the end of 2005.

    But China registered 122.44 million hectares of cropland by 2004, and the figure continued to shrink in 2005, according to a survey by the Ministry of Land and Resources.

    China has been suffering a chronic insufficiency of natural resources due to its huge population of 1.3 billion. The loss of arable land, mainly due to massive modern construction amid urbanization, has hampered economic development.

    Greater efforts should be made to save cultivated land from construction projects and increase the capacity of cropland, said Yang Bangjie, deputy director of the Planning and Research Institute under the Ministry of Agriculture.

    There must be joint efforts to save water resource and improve the efficiency of land use, said Yang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), before China's top advisory body opened its annual session in Beijing on Friday.

    The second unfulfilled task was spending on research and scientific development, which should account for over 1.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2005, according to the blueprint of China's economic and social development.