Full Text: Report on the Work of the Government(6)

Total imports and exports are projected to grow at around 7.5% this year. We will keep export policies stable and improve them, accelerate reform to facilitate customs clearance, and extend trials of cross-border e-commerce. We will implement policies to encourage imports, and import more products in short supply in China. We will guide the transformation and upgrading of processing trade, support businesses in creating Chinese brands and developing international marketing networks, develop service trade and undertake services outsourced by other countries, and raise the position of Chinese manufacturing in the global division of labor. We will encourage the export of complete sets of large equipment including telecommunications equipment, railways equipment, and power stations, and enhance the international reputation of Chinese equipment.

We will increase China's competitiveness through expanding its overseas business presence.

We will carry out reform of the management of outbound investment so that such investment is mainly reported for the record, and delegate much of the review and approval power over such investment to lower-level governments. We will provide better financial, legal and consular services, ensure orderly overseas business operations, and boost the export of products, project contracting and labor services.

We will intensify the planning and building of a Silk Road economic belt and a 21st century maritime Silk Road, and promote the building of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. By launching a number of major projects, we will speed up infrastructure connectivity with our neighbors, and open up new space for enhancing international economic and technologic cooperation.

We will engage in bilateral, multilateral and regional opening up and cooperation in a coordinated way.

We will strive to make progress in negotiations on agreements concerning trade in services, government procurement and information technology, and speed up negotiations on new areas such as environmental protection and e-commerce. We will actively participate in developing high-standard free trade areas; continue negotiations on investment agreements with the United States and the European Union, and accelerate free trade area negotiations with the Republic of Korea, Australia, and the Gulf Cooperation Council. We will continue to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, strive for mutual benefit with other countries, and ensure that opening up reinforces and is reinforced by reform and development.

3. Making domestic demand the main engine driving growth

Boosting domestic demand is both a major force driving economic growth and an important structural adjustment. We need to fully leverage the basic role of consumption and the key role of investment, foster new regional economic mainstay belts, stimulate both supply and demand, and establish a permanent mechanism for increasing domestic demand.

In working to increase domestic demand, we will focus on boosting consumption.

We will enhance people's ability to consume by increasing their incomes, improve consumption policies, foster new areas of consumption and increase consumption of services. We will support nongovernmental investors in running various types of services, with the focus on elderly care, health, tourism, and culture, and implement the system of paid vacations.

We will promote information consumption; implement China's broadband strategy; speed up the development of 4G mobile communications; build 100M fiber optic networks in cities and extend broadband connectivity to rural villages; greatly increase the speed of the Internet; deliver telecommunications, radio and television, and Internet services over a single broadband connection across the country; and encourage the creative development of e-commerce.

We will safeguard cyber-security. We will deepen reform of distribution channels; remove all barriers to a nationwide unified market; cut distribution costs; and encourage development of logistics and delivery, express delivery services, and online shopping. We will fully tap the enormous consumption potential of more than a billion people.

We will take investment as the key to maintaining stable economic growth.

We will accelerate reform of the investment and financing systems; encourage more parties to make investment; launch more demonstration projects involving private investment; improve the investment structure; and maintain proper growth in fixed-asset investment.

Budgetary investment of the central government will rise to 457.6 billion yuan, which will be mainly invested in government-subsidized housing, agriculture, major water conservancy projects, railways in the central and western regions, energy conservation, environmental protection and social programs. We hope that such government investment will attract more investment in these areas from other sources.

We will make developing new regional economic belts a strategic step for stimulating development.

We will energetically carry out the master strategy for regional development. We will give high priority to the large-scale development of the western region; fully revitalize old industrial bases in the northeast and other parts of the country; spur the rise of the central region; vigorously support the eastern region in taking the lead in transforming and upgrading the economy; and increase support to old revolutionary base areas, ethnic minority areas, border areas and poor areas.

We will promote a new type of regional development, and extend development in a phased way from the eastern region to the western region, from coastal areas to the interior, and along major rivers and land transportation lines. We will build a new economic development belt along the Yangtze River. We will use major coastal and border ports as fulcrums to develop economic belts that connect the coastal areas with the southwest, central south, northeast and northwest. We will promote economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta, deepen economic cooperation in the pan-Pearl River Delta, and further coordinate development in the Bohai Rim region and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

We will implement different economic policies in different regions, speed up relocation of industries, develop trans-regional transportation and goods distribution networks, and create new regional economic growth poles.

The seas are our valuable national territory. We will steadfastly promote land and marine development in a coordinated way, fully implement China's marine strategy, develop the marine economy, protect the marine environment, resolutely uphold China's maritime rights and interests, and build China into a maritime power.

4. Advancing agricultural modernization and rural reform and development

Agriculture is important for expanding domestic demand and making structural adjustment, and it is a sector vital for ensuring China's stability and maintaining public confidence. We must make doing a good job in our work relating to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers the number one priority in all our endeavors and accelerate agricultural modernization in order to ensure China's food security and increase farmers' incomes.

We will make sure that China's cultivated land area does not fall below the red line of 120 million hectares. We will improve the quality of cultivated land, increase overall agricultural production capacity, and guarantee our basic self-sufficiency of cereal grains and absolute grain security. In this way, we will have full control over the food supply of China's 1.3 billion people.

We will strengthen policies for supporting and protecting agriculture.

We will raise the minimum purchase prices of wheat and rice, and continue to implement the policy on purchasing and stockpiling corn, canola seeds and sugar on an ad hoc basis. We will consider the introduction of a system of guaranteed base prices for agricultural products, under which subsidies will be given to producers when market prices are too low and to low-income consumers when market prices are too high.

Increases in agricultural subsidies will be mainly provided to support the production of grain and other major agricultural products, new types of agricultural businesses and major agricultural regions. More rewards and subsidies will be given to major counties that produce grain, canola seed or hogs, and support will also be provided for beef and mutton production.

We will improve the subsoil of farmland to promote the increase in agricultural output, and carry out a trial this year on 6.67 million hectares of farmland. Funds for agricultural development will be merged and allocated in a coordinated way. Even though our financial resources are strained, we must ensure that spending on agriculture always increases.

We will strengthen the foundation of agricultural and rural development.

Investment will be concentrated on building a number of major water conservancy projects. Over 70 billion yuan will be allocated from the central government budget this year to fund major projects to divert water, protect key water sources, harness rivers and lakes, and develop efficient water-saving irrigation. All local governments need to give higher priority to building small and medium-sized water conservancy projects and solve the "last-kilometer" problem of farmland not being connected with main irrigation channels.

Efforts will be sped up to increase the acreage of high-standard farmland that produces good yields in times of drought or excessive rain. We will work harder to breed important superior crop varieties, and develop and extend the use of new types of efficient agricultural machinery. We will improve rural infrastructure such as roads, telecommunications services, and water, electricity and methane supply. A total of 2.6 million rundown rural houses will be rebuilt and 200,000 kilometers of rural roads will be upgraded.

We will give high priority to resolving problems facing children, women and older people who are left behind in rural villages by rural migrant workers working in cities. Safe drinking water will be made available to another 60 million rural residents. Through hard work this year and next, we must provide safe drinking water to all rural residents.

We will vigorously push forward rural reform.

We will adhere to and improve the basic rural management system and grant farmers more property rights. We will ensure that rural land contract relations will long remain unchanged, and promptly determine, register and certify the rights to contracted use of land and the use of collective land for construction purposes in rural areas. We will guide the orderly transfer of contracted land-use rights and prudently carry out trials to reform the rural land system. We will maintain household operations as the basis; cultivate new types of agricultural businesses, such as large and specialized family businesses, family farms, farmer cooperatives, and agribusinesses; and develop large-scale agricultural businesses of various types. We will train a new type of professional farmers.

We will improve tenure reform for collective forests and accelerate the reform of state-owned farms, grazing land and forestry farms. We will improve commercial agricultural services and carry out trials of comprehensive reform of rural supply and marketing cooperatives. In carrying out rural reform, we need to base ourselves on actual conditions, conduct trials first, fully respect farmers' wishes, and steadfastly protect their legitimate rights and interests.

We will explore new ways to alleviate poverty through development.

We will move faster to promote development of contiguous poor areas and reduce poverty there. The central government will increase support for major trans-regional infrastructure projects and economic coordination, strengthen ecological preservation and improve public services. Local governments need to merge poverty alleviation resources to make better use of them and take targeted measures to ensure that assistance reaches poverty-stricken villages and households. We will guide nongovernmental forces to participate in poverty alleviation. This year, we will lift more than ten million people out of poverty. We will continue to fight poverty and prevent poverty from being passed to future generations.