CRACKING HARD NUT
When the new leadership of the CPC Central Committee took office, they were faced with the challenge that the three-decade reform entered a deep-water zone. The remaining reform agenda would be hard nuts to crack.
During a little over three years, the CPC Central Committee, led by Xi, has focused on the continued reform and opening up which are crucial to the great rejuvenation of the nation.
Since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee held in 2013, China has rolled out about 330 reform measures involving 15 sectors.
Moreover, as of December 2015, 19 meetings by the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform had been held, all presided over by Xi.
Nearly 100 plans for deepening reform had been drawn up during the past three years.
The plans touched upon deep-rooted interest realignment which had long stalled, including judicial reform; fiscal and taxation reform; reform of the household registration (hukou) system; remuneration reform of state-owned enterprises, public hospital reform, rural land reform; and soccer reform.
At the end of 2015, Xi championed reform of the armed forces by 2020, vowing to reorganize the current administration and command system.
China opened three new pilot free trade zones (FTZ) Tianjin, Fujian and Guangdong in April 2015, 18 months after the first FTZ was established in Shanghai to help streamline the overloaded administrative approval system and encourage innovation and internationalization.
In January 2015, the State Council unveiled a plan to unify its two-tiered pension system in the hope of improving social equality by eliminating a major disparity between public and private employee benefits.
On Oct. 1, 2015, China began unifying three essential business certificates issued by three offices -- business licenses, tax registration certificates and organization code certificates as one certificate issued by one office.
The move has significantly simplified the registration procedure for businesses, thereby, encouraging start-ups.
Apart from reforms, the CPC Central Committee attached great importance to poverty reduction.
Addressing the Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum in October 2015 in Beijing, Xi said that during his term he had invested the most effort in poverty alleviation.
To this end, the president used seven of his 26 domestic inspection trips to specifically target poverty, and another 15 involved related activities.
From 2011 to 2014, over 52 million -- almost the population of a medium sized country -- rural residents living in poverty were lifted out of poverty. There is now 70.17 million rural residents living under the poverty line.
