China has registered some of the most rapid advances in human development in history, with its Human Development Index Ranking increased 20 percent since 1990, reveals UNDP's 2005 Human Development Report.

However, the Report warns that China's economic advance has outpaced social progress, therefore the country face the challenge to ensure that remarkable income growth is converted into sustained progress in non-income dimensions of human development.

The 2005 Human Development Report was released yesterday in Beijing at a launch ceremony organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in China. The Report recognizes China's massive achievements in poverty relief in the past 30 years, saying that if China's achievements were not recorded, the world would have actually regressed in its progress towards poverty alleviation.

Every year since 1990, the UNDP has commissioned the Human Development Report by an independent team of experts to explore major issues of global concern. A worldwide advisory network of leaders in academia, government and civil society contribute data, ideas, and best practices to support the analysis and proposals published in the Report. The concept of Human Development looks beyond per capita income, human resource development, and basic needs as a measure of human progress and also assesses such factors as human freedom, dignity and human agency, that is, the role of people in development. The Human Development Report 2005 argues that development is ultimately "a process of enlarging people's choices," not just raising national incomes.

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