Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China
Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central
Military Commission, speaks during the annual Central Economic Work
Conference in Beijing, capital of China. The annual Central Economic
Work Conference was held in Beijing from Dec 16 to 18.
China has laid out economic priorities for the next year, pledging
to maintain the consistency, stability and sustainability of its
macro policies, expand domestic demand, strengthen antimonopoly
efforts and step up all-around opening up.
The annual tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference, held
between Wednesday and Friday in Beijing, outlined key tasks in eight
aspects, including efforts to strengthen China's competitiveness in
strategic science and technologies and improve industry and supply
chains toward a more independent and controllable position.
President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the Communist
Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central
Military Commission, reviewed the country's economic work in 2020,
analyzed the current situation and mapped out plans for 2021 at the
conference.
China will continue to adopt a proactive fiscal policy and prudent
monetary policy while maintaining necessary support for the economic
recovery next year, said a statement released after the meeting.
Proactive fiscal policy must be implemented in a manner that is of
higher quality, more effective and more sustainable, the statement
said. It added that the intensity of expenditure must be maintained
to bolster financial support for the nation's major strategic tasks,
promote innovation in science and technology, expedite the
adjustment in economic structure, readjust income distribution and
defuse the risks arising from the hidden debts of local governments.
Prudent monetary policy must be pursued in a more flexible, tailored
and appropriate way, with steps to ensure a stable macro leverage
ratio and replenish the capital of banks via multiple channels,
according to the statement. Market reform of interest rates and
exchange rates will be deepened, while the exchange rate of the yuan
will be kept stable at a reasonable, equilibrium level.
Policymakers at the meeting urged quicker steps to foster a new
development paradigm with the domestic circulation as the mainstay
and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other.
They reiterated the importance of pursuing supply-side structural
reform as the main task while emphasizing the management of the
demand side to unblock difficulties, strengthen weak areas and
connect procedures including production, distribution and
consumption.
Meeting participants recounted what was "an extraordinary year" in
the history of the People's Republic of China, during which the
nation was faced with a challenging and complicated international
landscape, arduous tasks of pursuing domestic reform, development
and stability and, especially, severe shocks from COVID-19.
With accurate judgment of the situation, decisive actions and
strenuous efforts, China came up with a response that has won
approval from the people, attention from the world and will go down
in history, they said.
China is set to become the only major economy that secures economic
growth this year, and the country is on course to secure a decisive
victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects
and make major progress in the great rejuvenation of the nation,
policymakers said.
Eyeing the weak areas of industries, the country will ensure
better-implementation of key projects targeting breakthroughs in key
technologies and solutions to bottleneck problems while encouraging
businesses to focus on their areas of strength and forge new
cutting-edge technologies.
In boosting domestic demand, policymakers highlighted the need for
effective institutional arrangements in guiding consumption, savings
and investment, saying that more steps to create jobs, refine the
social protection system, better the income allocation structure and
expand middle-income groups are needed to bolster consumption.
It is important to reinvigorate investment from the whole of
society, scale up growth of the digital economy and ramp up
investment in new types of infrastructure, they said, adding that a
city upgrade program and the renovation of old residential
communities must be moved forward.
The conference stressed the necessity of building a high-level
socialist market economic system, pursuing high-level opening up and
enabling reform and opening-up to reinforce each other.
It reiterated pledges to widen market access, promote fair
competition, protect intellectual property rights and build a
unified domestic market, saying that China will actively consider
joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for
Trans-Pacific Partnership.
To ensure China's food security, policymakers pledged to bolster the
growth of the seed industry, highlighting the significance of
protecting and utilizing seed resources and better developing seed
reserves.
To strengthen antitrust efforts and prevent the disorderly expansion
of capital, the country will improve laws and regulations regarding
the identification of monopolistic practices from internet platform
companies and their collection, use and management of data and
protection of consumer rights, they said.
Innovation in the financial sector must be conducted under the
premise of prudent regulatory measures, they added.
The conference highlighted the need to solve prominent housing
problems in major cities. While reiterating the policy stance that
houses are for living in, not for speculation, policymakers pledged
to place strong emphasis on the development of public rental housing
programs, refine policies for long-term tenancy housing and
standardize development of the rental market.
More land supply will go to construction programs for rental
housing, and the country will work to enable tenants to enjoy the
same public services as homeowners.
With China already committing to peak carbon dioxide emissions
before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, the
conference urged quicker steps to come up with an action plan that
enables the peaking of emissions.
It called for accelerated efforts to better the industry and energy
structures and enable the peaking of coal consumption at an early
date while bolstering the development of new energy.
With China set to build itself into a moderately prosperous society
in all respects, the policymakers said the outcomes of poverty
reduction must be consolidated and resolute efforts must be adopted
to prevent people from falling back into poverty again on a large
scale.
Source: China Daily |