We will improve planning for regional development.
We will coordinate the launching of three strategic initiatives and the development of the eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions. We will ensure related plans are well implemented and explore and adopt new measures. We will boost the development of national-level new areas, development zones, and industrial parks through innovation. We will support the economic transformation and development of areas hurt by resource depletion and severe ecological degradation. Airspace resources will be better allocated. We will speed up the development of maritime economy demonstration zones, we will move faster to develop China into a strong maritime country, and we will be resolute in safeguarding China's maritime rights and interests.
We will take solid steps to pursue a new type of urbanization.
We will deepen the reform of the household registration system. This year, at least 13 million new urban residents will be registered as permanent urban residents. We will speed up work to introduce the urban residence card system nationwide. We will support the development of small and medium cities and small towns with distinctive local features. We will help a number of counties and very large towns that meet the criteria to steadily develop into cities, and we will make city clusters better play their role in driving the development of their surrounding areas.
We will encourage local governments to integrate their urban plans into single master plans and raise the standard of municipal planning and design. We will take more steps to reform and develop the construction industry, and improve the quality of construction projects. We will promote coordinated urban development above and below the ground, strengthen geological surveying, and begin construction on at least another 2,000 kilometers of underground utility tunnels in cities. A three-year initiative will be launched to remove the risk of flooding in highly vulnerable urban areas, further progress will be made in the development of sponge cities, and effective steps will be taken to address traffic congestion and other urban maladies. All these efforts will make our cities more attractive and function better.
4. Transforming and upgrading the real economy through innovation
The real economy has always been the foundation of China's development; the task we now face is to speed up its transformation and upgrading. We will do more to implement the strategy of innovation-driven development, upgrade the structure of the real economy, and improve its performance and competitiveness.
We will strengthen our capability for making technological innovations.
We will improve mechanisms for providing continued long-term support for fundamental research and original research, build major national infrastructure projects for science and technology and set up technological innovation hubs, and establish platforms for sharing R&D resources.
We will continue piloting reforms for all-around innovation. We will reform the system for assessing scientific and technological achievements. We will see our universities and research institutes truly operate with autonomy, ensure that incentive policies like stocks, options, and dividends are implemented, and implement the reform of the systems for managing research funding and projects. These steps should keep our scientists and engineers from being distracted and allow them to focus on their research.
We will begin piloting reforms to conduct integrated management of intellectual property rights and improve the system for creating, protecting, and applying intellectual property rights.
We will deepen reform of China's systems for cultivating talent and introduce more effective policies for bringing in talent from overseas. By welcoming the world's brightest minds to China and fully motivating our scientists and engineers, we will use innovation to accomplish great things.
We will accelerate the development of emerging industries.
We will fully implement our plan for developing strategic emerging industries. We will accelerate R&D on and commercialization of new materials, new energy, artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, bio-pharmacy, 5G mobile communications, and other technologies, and develop industrial clusters in these fields. We will continue to support and guide the development of the sharing economy to enable greater efficiency in the use of resources and bring greater convenience to our people. We will formulate regulatory rules for emerging industries in keeping with the principle of encouraging innovation and conducting regulation in a tolerant and prudent way, and guide and promote the healthy development of emerging industries. We will deepen reform of the statistics management system and improve statistics on emerging industries.
In the age of the Internet, faster, safer, and more cost-effective information networks are crucial to the development of every sector. This year, we will do more to increase broadband speed and lower rates for Internet services. Mobile rates for domestic roaming and long-distance calls will be cancelled; rates for broadband services for small and medium enterprises will be slashed; and rates for international calls will be lowered. We will push forward with the Internet Plus action plan and speed up the development of the digital economy. I am confident that all these steps will benefit both businesses and our people.
We will endeavor to transform and upgrade traditional industries.
We will intensify efforts to implement the Made in China 2025 initiative, promote accelerated application of big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, and use new technologies, new forms of business, and new models to bring about transformation in the production, management, and marketing models of traditional industries.
With the development of smart manufacturing as our focus, we will press ahead with building national smart manufacturing demonstration zones and manufacturing innovation centers. We will work hard on the implementation of projects to build a robust foundation for industrial development and projects to develop and make major equipment, and we will make a big push to develop advanced manufacturing, thus moving toward mid- and high-end manufacturing. We will improve policies designed to turn China into a manufacturer of quality, and we will adopt a variety of supportive measures for technological upgrading and re-energize traditional industries.
We will continue to encourage people to start businesses and make innovations.
Our policy of encouraging people to start businesses and innovate is an effective way of creating jobs through business startups and innovation; it is an important source of strength that fosters new growth drivers to replace old ones and that upgrades the economic structure; and it is an effective channel for promoting equal opportunity and facilitating vertical social mobility. We must keep on pushing hard with this policy.
We will establish more entrepreneurship and innovation demonstration centers; we will encourage large enterprises, research institutes, and universities to establish specialized spaces for crowd innovation; we will strengthen support for innovative medium, small and micro businesses; and we will develop a full range of services that are accessible to the general public for the entire business startup and innovation process. All this should help entities to fully exploit their own strengths and interact both on- and off-line, and see small enterprises burgeoning nationwide, large enterprises growing mighty, and market dynamism and social creativity being fully unleashed.
We will take comprehensive steps to improve product quality.
We will take a broad range of actions to raise quality, strengthening all-around quality management, building firm technological foundations for product quality, tightening quality oversight, and improving the competitive mechanism that links a firm's fate in business to the quality of its products. Quality is born of workmanship. We will promote workmanship and foster a culture of workmanship where workers have a strong work ethic and tirelessly seek improvement. We will refine our incentive mechanisms and see great numbers of Chinese workers exemplify workmanship and more Chinese brands enjoy international recognition. We will usher in an era of quality for economic development in China.
