(Yicai Global) March 25 -- About 1 billion Chinese citizens have never been on a plane and 500 million have never even used a toilet.

Making both affordable for these people would generate enormous demand, Liu Shijin, the deputy director of the committee for economic affairs under the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said at an economic forum in Beijing over the weekend.

With the gradual expansion of China's economic scale, its gross domestic product growth rate slowed in 2015 from the previous 10 percent to 6.9 percent, and has remained below 7 percent for the past three years.

China's economic development has been shifting from rapid growth to a low-speed pace. The rate remained above 6 percent in the past two years, doubling the country's GDP and per-capita income for both urban and rural residents by 2020, compared with 2010, Liu said.

The former deputy director of the State Council's Development Research Center added that the growth rate will be 5 percent to 6 percent after reaching the medium level, and after 2020, it may be around 5 percent. These changes comply with empirical rules and mirror those experienced in Taiwan and also by Japan and South Korea.

In the past few decades, some needs reached historical peaks, such as the need for real estate, infrastructure, cars, iron and steel, coal and building materials, Liu said. China's labor force is also changing. The total number of working-age Chinese and those in employment started to fall from 2012 and 2018, respectively, Liu added.

The economy is shifting down gears to medium-speed growth, but what does this theoretical model look like, Liu asked. He added that it is of great value for discussion and is very relevant.

Great Potential

As for macro-economic policies, Liu said he understood people's expectations, but even if monetary policy is loosened to the full extent it is still unlikely to change the potential growth rate.

From Liu's perspective, the economy still has great growth potential in the next stage of high-quality development but with medium speed, after going through a rapid increase for more than 30 years.

For instance, enabling hundreds of millions of citizens to afford air travel and toilets will generate enormous demand. With the full cultivation and play of human capital as well as addressing inequality of opportunities and other issues, low-income groups will have great potential in raising their earnings and upgrading human capital.

In addition, achieving such a potential also depends on improvement at departments that have been lagging in efficiency.

"China still has a lot of areas that operate with low economic efficiency, such as some basic departments," Liu said. "The cost for its five fundamental sectors, namely energy, logistics, telecoms, land and financing, is generally high. The cost in these fields is more than twice the amount in the US, according to statistics."

"The US has abundant land resources so their low price in this sector makes sense," Liu said. "But high prices in [China's] other sectors are mainly due to administrative monopolies to a different extent and lack of sufficient competition. The lower the efficiency, the higher the cost."

In China, many of the reforms are not that difficult to complete, but you will eventually find out that those deserving the reforms most are also the hardest to change, Liu said. This requires the emancipation of the mind and verification of the root causes, he added.