Full Text: Report on the Work of the Government(5)

We will expand the one-stop review and approval model and one-window services, and explore ways to conduct unified market oversight. We will move faster to put in place a social credibility system, share more government information between government departments and with the public, introduce unified codes for natural and legal persons, implement a blacklisting system for enterprises that violate market competition principles and infringe on the rights and interests of consumers, and make those who lose credibility pay the price and smooth the way for those who have credibility.

We will give high priority to reforming the fiscal and tax systems.

We will institute a comprehensive, well-regulated, open and transparent budget system. We will work hard to incorporate all government revenue into the budget, and bring all revenue and expenditures under budgetary management. Governments at all levels should release their budgets and final accounts to the public, and budgets released by government bodies should progressively include details down to basic regular and project expenditures. In particular, all public spending on official overseas visits, official vehicles, and official hospitality should be made public. We will ensure transparency of public finance and make it easy for people to understand and oversee it.

We will increase the proportion of general transfer payments, and cut the number of special transfer payments by one third this year and continue to cut them in coming years.

We will advance the reform of the tax system by taking the following steps: Extend trials for replacing business tax with VAT to the railway transport, postal and telecommunications services industries, abolish fees and replace them with taxes, reform the excise tax and resource tax, and move ahead with legislation on a property tax and environmental protection tax. We will grant additional tax breaks to micro businesses with low profits and reduce the burden on businesses.

We will work faster on ways to adjust the power and spending responsibilities between central and local governments, and progressively adjust distribution of revenue between them while keeping the current division of financial resources between them basically stable.

We will establish a standard financing mechanism for local governments to issue bonds and place local government debt under budgetary management. We will implement a comprehensive government financial reporting system and guard against and defuse debt risks.

We will deepen reform of the financial sector.

We will continue to liberalize interest rates by granting financial institutions more power to set their interest rates. We will keep the renminbi exchange rate basically stable at an appropriate, balanced level, expand its floating range, and move toward renminbi convertibility under capital accounts.

We will steadily promote the establishment of small and medium-sized banks and other financial institutions by private capital, and guide private capital to invest in or hold shares in financial institutions and intermediary financing services.

We will establish a deposit insurance system and improve the risk disposal mechanism of financial institutions. Reform in policy-based financial institutions will be carried out. We will speed up development of a multilevel capital market, advance the reform to introduce a system for stock issuance registration, and develop a well-regulated bond market. We will actively develop agricultural insurance and explore how to establish a catastrophe insurance system. We will develop inclusive finance.

We will promote the healthy development of Internet banking, improve the mechanism for coordinating financial oversight, keep a close watch on the cross-border flow of capital, and ensure that no systemic or regional financial risks occur. We will ensure that financial services play an active role in meeting the needs of the real economy, including small and micro businesses, agriculture, rural areas, and farmers.

We will enhance the vitality of economic entities under all forms of ownership.

We will uphold and improve the basic economic system. We will improve the distribution and structure of the state-owned sector of the economy and accelerate the development of mixed-ownership economic entities. We will establish a sound modern corporate structure and corporate governance. We will improve the system for managing state-owned assets, clearly define the functions of different SOEs, and carry out trials of investing state capital in corporate operations. We will improve budgeting for state capital operations and raise the percentage of earnings from state capital turned over to public finance by central government-owned enterprises.

We will formulate measures for non-state capital to participate in investment projects of central government enterprises, and allow non-state capital to participate in a number of projects in areas such as banking, oil, electricity, railway, telecommunications, resources development and public utilities. We will formulate specific measures to permit non-public enterprise participation in franchising.

We will reform the railway investment and financing system, and open competitive operations in more areas so as to create a platform for the full participation of private capital. We will improve the property rights system to ensure that property rights are inviolable in both the public and non-public sectors.

2. Ushering in a new phase of China's opening to the outside world and ensuring its high standard performance

Opening up and reform have been launched as integral parts of the same initiative as they are mutually reinforcing. We will foster a new open-economy system and advance a new round of opening up to embrace the international market. This will lead to deeper reform and structural adjustment and enable us to enhance China's ability to compete internationally.

We will open China wider to the outside world in all areas.

We will continue to utilize foreign investment actively and efficiently, open up more service sectors to foreign capital, and level the playing field for domestic and foreign enterprises to compete on fair terms so as to ensure that China remains a top choice for foreign investment. We will ensure the successful building and management of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone so that this model can be copied and extended, and we will launch a number of new trials. We will open China's inland and border areas wider to the outside world, and turn these broad areas into hotspots for opening up.

We will make it a strategic priority to upgrade exports and promote balanced growth of foreign trade.