This year, our focus is on doing the following work well.

1. Keeping overall price levels basically stable

Recently, prices have risen fairly quickly and inflation expectations have increased. This problem concerns the people's well-being, bears on overall interests and affects social stability. We must therefore make it our top priority in macroeconomic control to keep overall price levels stable. We need to make the most of favorable conditions, such as an ample supply of manufactured goods and our abundant grain reserves and considerable foreign exchange reserves, endeavor to overcome the adverse effects of imported and structural inflation, cushion the upward pressure for costs of factors of production, and correctly guide market expectations to resolutely curb price rises. We need to comprehensively strengthen our work controlling and monitoring prices mainly through economic and legal methods supplemented by administrative means when necessary. First, we will effectively manage market liquidity and control the monetary conditions for commodity prices rising too rapidly. We will decide proper timing, frequency and intensity of price adjustments for goods and services whose prices are regulated by the government. Second, we will vigorously develop production and ensure the production and supply of major farm products, daily necessities and important means of production. We will effectively implement the system of provincial governors taking responsibility for the "rice bag" (grain supply) program and city mayors taking responsibility for the "vegetable basket" (non-grain food supply) program. Third, we will develop the distribution system for farm products, actively encourage farmers and stores to link up, and guarantee the unimpeded transport of fresh farm products through "green channels," where vehicles carrying such goods are exempt from paying road tolls. We will improve the reserve system for important goods and the system for temporarily purchasing and stockpiling major farm products, seize the opportune moment for the state to manipulate reserves, adjust imports and exports, and strengthen our ability to control the market. Fourth, we will strengthen oversight and supervision of prices and maintain market order. We particularly need to strengthen law enforcement concerning pricing, and strictly investigate and deal with illegal behavior such as driving up prices through price collusion or market speculation. Fifth, we will improve the system of subsidies and institute a sound mechanism to raise social assistance and social security benefits when commodity prices rise. We cannot allow price rises to affect the normal lives of low-income people.

2. Further expanding domestic demand, especially consumer demand

Expanding domestic demand is a long-term strategic principle and basic standpoint of China's economic development as well as a fundamental means and an internal requirement for promoting balanced economic development.

We will actively boost consumer demand. We will continue to increase government spending used to help expand consumption, and increase subsidies to low-income urban residents and farmers. We will continue to implement the policies of providing subsidies for rural residents to purchase home appliances and subsidies for trading-in old home appliances for new ones. We will strengthen the infrastructure for the distribution of goods, culture and sports, travel, and broadband in rural areas and small and medium-sized cities. We will vigorously promote consumption in the areas of culture, travel and old-age care. We will promote chain-store operations and unified distribution in rural areas, optimize the distribution of urban commercial outlets, and develop new services such as e-commerce, online shopping and the Geographic Information System. We will energetically overhaul and standardize the market, and earnestly protect consumers' rights and interests. We will intensify our efforts to crack down on violations of intellectual property rights and the manufacture and sale of counterfeit or substandard goods.

We will strive to improve the investment structure. We will earnestly implement the State Council's 36 new guidelines for encouraging and guiding nongovernmental investment; work quickly to formulate open and transparent standards and supporting policies on market access; effectively relax restrictions on market access; genuinely eliminate all visible and invisible barriers; encourage and guide nongovernmental investment in areas such as basic industries, infrastructure, municipal public utilities, social programs, and financial services; prod privately-run enterprises to strengthen their innovation, transformation and upgrading; encourage and guide the reorganization and mergers of nongovernmental capital and its involvement in SOE reform; strengthen services and guidance for and standardized supervision of nongovernmental investment; and promote its stable growth and structural optimization. We will let government investment to play the leading role in restructuring, give priority to ensuring funding for key projects that are under construction or expansion, and begin construction on the major projects in the 12th Five-Year Plan in an orderly manner. We will prevent haphazard investment and redundant construction. We will strictly enforce investment project approval standards on land use, energy conservation, environmental protection and safety, and improve the quality and benefits of investment.

3. Consolidating and strengthening the position of agriculture as the foundation of the economy

We will steadfastly make agriculture, rural areas, and farmers the top priority of the government's work; carry out agricultural modernization while deepening industrialization and urbanization; and consolidate and build upon the favorable situation in agriculture and rural areas.

We will ensure an adequate supply of agricultural products and increase farmers' incomes through multiple channels. We will make safeguarding food security our primary goal, and work tirelessly to increase agricultural production. We will keep the area planted in grain crops stable, and support the growing of cotton, oilseed and sugar crops in the most suitable areas. We will energetically develop the animal husbandry, fishery, and forestry sectors. We will effectively carry out the new round of the "vegetable basket" program and ensure that suburbs of large and medium-sized cities have a basic area for growing vegetables and a basic ability to supply fresh produce for urban residents. We will get science and technology to better support agriculture, develop and expand the crop seed industry, and launch large-scale efforts to increase agricultural production. We will continue to implement the policy of minimum grain purchase prices, raise the floor price for wheat by 5 to 7 yuan per 50 kg and increase the floor price for rice by 9 to 23 yuan per 50 kg this year. We will energetically develop nonagricultural industries in rural areas, strengthen county economies, improve farmers' vocational skills and their ability to start their own businesses and increase their incomes, and encourage them to find nonagricultural employment in their hometowns or nearby areas. We will raise the poverty line, and intensify our efforts to alleviate poverty through development.

We will put great effort into water conservancy, and comprehensively strengthen agricultural and rural infrastructure. We will focus on developing more irrigation and water conservancy projects, harnessing small and medium-sized rivers, reinforcing small reservoirs and faulty and dangerous sluices, and preventing and responding to geological disasters from mountain torrents. We will improve irrigation and drainage facilities, develop water-saving irrigation, reinforce river embankments, clear away silt and dredge waterways, eliminate hidden dangers in reservoirs, and increase their storage capacity to prevent floods. Through several years of hard work, we will comprehensively improve our ability to prevent floods, control droughts, and prevent and mitigate natural disasters. We will vigorously develop and improve rural land, develop arable land that meets high drought and flood resistance standards on a large scale, and accelerate our work to increase the country's grain production capacity by 50 million tons. We will intensify work on projects to provide running water and electricity to rural homes, build and improve roads, exploit methane and construct rural housing, and energetically improve rural working and living conditions, so that farmers can live in a nice environment.

We will increase funding for agriculture, rural areas, and farmers and improve our policies to strengthen agriculture and benefit farmers. We will direct more government spending toward agriculture and rural areas, and ensure that total expenditures and spending increases in this area are both higher than last year. Our budgetary fixed asset investment will be used mainly to develop agricultural and rural infrastructure, and we will ensure that both the proportion and the total amount of investment further increase. Proceeds from the transfer of land-use rights will be spent primarily on developing agricultural land, irrigation and water conservancy, and constructing rural infrastructure, and we will ensure that an adequate amount of funds is drawn from these proceeds and used for those purposes. This year's allocation for agriculture, rural areas, and farmers from the Central Government budget will be 988.45 billion yuan, an increase of 130.48 billion yuan over last year. We will continue to increase subsidies to agricultural production, and give high priority in the newly increased subsidies to major production areas, key crop varieties, major specialized households, and specialized farmer cooperatives. We will increase general transfer payments from the Central Government to the major counties that supply other parts of the country with grain, oilseed and pigs, and expand the size and scope of awards and subsidies. We will encourage financial institutions to increase their supply of credit for agriculture, rural areas, and farmers and ensure that this year's percentage increase in credit is no less than that of last year. We will increase policy-based financial support for agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. We will improve the policy-supported agricultural insurance system, and develop an agricultural reinsurance system and a mechanism for diffusing the risk of huge catastrophes.

We will deepen rural reform, and increase the vitality of rural development. We will adhere to and improve the basic rural operating system and improve the household contract responsibility system for land use including farmland, forestland and grassland. We will move forward with reform of the rural land management system in an orderly manner. We will explore and establish a compensation mechanism for protecting arable land. We will continue to carry out comprehensive rural reforms. We will fully implement the government award and subsidy system for village-level public works projects, the launching of which is determined by villagers themselves, and we will significantly increase the size of awards and subsidies. We will accelerate the development of specialized farmer cooperatives and the system whereby various sectors of society provide services for agriculture, and raise the level of organization in agriculture. By the end of this year, we will put in place sound public services for spreading agricultural technology; preventing and controlling animal and plant diseases; and monitoring the quality of agricultural products in townships, towns and regions all over the country.

Ensuring adequate food for 1.3 billion Chinese people is always a top priority, and we must never treat this issue lightly. We have the confidence and the ability to handle this important matter well.

4. Accelerating strategic economic restructuring

This is the major goal of transforming the pattern of economic development. China's economy needs to be quickly put on the path of endogenous growth driven by innovation.

We will adjust and optimize the industrial structure. We will quicken the establishment of a modern industrial system and give impetus to industrial transformation and upgrading.

First, we will transform and upgrade manufacturing industries. We will intensify technological upgrading in enterprises, with the focus on becoming better able to develop new products and build brand names; utilize energy and resources more comprehensively; increase the integration of technological and process systems; and raise the quality, technological content and value-added of products. We will encourage enterprises in key industries to enter into trans-regional acquisitions and reorganizations. We will improve the exit mechanism and accompanying policies for outdated production capacity.

Second, we will accelerate the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries. We will vigorously develop the next-generation IT industry; build a high-performance broadband information network; accelerate the integration of the telecommunications network, the radio and television broadcasting network, and the Internet; and promote demonstrations on how to use the Internet of Things. We will energetically give impetus to the development of industries such as energy conservation, environmental protection, new energy, biotechnology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials and new energy vehicles. We need to promptly formulate standards, improve policies, enhance innovation capabilities, get small and medium-sized hi-tech companies to play their role, and foster the healthy development of strategic emerging industries so they more quickly build their production capacity and core competitiveness.

Third, we will vigorously develop service industries. We will accelerate the development of producer services and actively develop consumer services. We will make every effort to develop and upgrade the software industry. We will strive to create a market environment that is conducive to the development of service industries, and quickly improve the policy system for stimulating their development. We will make the prices of power, water, gas and heating basically the same for both service industries encouraged by the state and the industrial sector as quickly as possible.

Fourth, we will strengthen the modern energy industry and the comprehensive transport system. We will actively promote changes in the way energy is produced and used and raise energy efficiency. We will give impetus to the clean use of traditional energy sources, intensify the construction of smart power grids, and vigorously develop clean energy. We will coordinate the development and accelerate the construction of a comprehensive transport system that is convenient, safe, cost-effective and highly efficient. We will steadfastly make coordinated development plans for land and sea and advance the development of the marine economy.

We will promote balanced development between regions. We will fully implement all regional development plans. In implementing the master strategy of regional development, we will steadfastly give high priority to the strategy of large-scale development of the western region, and earnestly implement the policies and measures for the new 10-year period of the large-scale development of the western region and all the measures to promote the leapfrog development of Tibet and Xinjiang. We will fully revitalize old industrial bases such as northeast China and continue to transform resource-dependent cities. We will vigorously foster the rise of the central region and make greater use of its geographical advantage of linking the eastern and western regions. We will actively support the eastern region in taking the lead in development, and leading the country in making innovations in systems and mechanisms and transforming the pattern of development. We will get Shenzhen and other special economic zones, Pudong New Area in Shanghai and Binhai New Area in Tianjin to better play a leading and exploratory role in reform and opening up. We will give greater support to the development of old revolutionary base areas, ethnic minority areas and border areas, promulgate and implement the 2011-2020 rural poverty alleviation and development program, launch the project to alleviate poverty through development in contiguous areas with particular difficulties, and lift impoverished areas out of poverty more quickly.

We will actively yet prudently move forward with urbanization. We will adhere to the path of urbanization with Chinese characteristics, abide by the principles of urban development and foster the sound development of urbanization. We will adhere to scientific planning and strict management. We will strengthen urban infrastructure and public service facilities, increase the overall carrying capacity of cities and towns, and raise the level of urban management and services. We will gradually make sure that rural migrant workers who have stable jobs and have lived in cities or towns for a number of years are registered as urban residents in line with local conditions and in a step-by-step manner. We need to help rural migrant workers who do not currently qualify as urban residents to resolve practical difficulties such as remuneration, schooling for their children, public health, renting homes, and social security. We need to fully respect the right of farmers to independently choose whether to seek jobs in cities or stay in their home villages, and genuinely protect their legitimate rights and interests concerning land they contract to work and the land on which their homes sit. We must steadfastly adhere to the correct orientation of ensuring that urbanization together with agricultural modernization and the building of a new countryside are mutually reinforcing.

We will strengthen energy conservation, environmental protection and ecological development, and actively respond to climate change. We will focus on conserving energy in areas such as the industrial sector, construction, transportation and public institutions. We will continue to implement key energy conservation projects. We will vigorously conserve energy in the industrial sector, popularize energy-conserving technology and equipment, and improve energy efficiency. We will invest more in improving energy conservation in existing buildings and actively promote energy conservation in new buildings. We will vigorously develop the circular economy. We will move forward with the pilot project to build low-carbon cities. We will strengthen our capacity to adapt to climate change and respond to extreme climate events in particular. We will put in place well-equipped statistical and monitoring systems for greenhouse gas emissions, energy conservation and emissions reduction. We will accelerate the planning and building of sewer networks and garbage disposal facilities in urban areas and expand the use of recycled water. We will strengthen the environmental management of chemicals. We will start the work of denitration in coal-fired power plants and strengthen prevention and control of particles pollution; step up the treatment of marine pollution; accelerate the treatment of water pollution in key river basins, the treatment of air pollution, the treatment of heavy metal pollution in key areas and the comprehensive improvement of the rural environment; and control pollution from non-point rural sources. We will continue to carry out major ecological restoration projects, intensify the protection and management of major functional ecological zones, implement the second phase of the project to protect natural forest resources, implement the subsidy and reward policy for grassland ecological conservation, consolidate achievements already made in turning reclaimed farmland into forests and grasslands as well as grazing land to grasslands, vigorously carry out afforestation, strengthen wetland protection and recovery, and make progress in comprehensively dealing with desertification and stony deserts. We will improve contingency plans for preventing and mitigating natural disasters, and accelerate the development of surveying and evaluation, monitoring and early warning, prevention and control, and emergency response systems in areas prone to geological disasters from mountain torrents.

 (to be continued)

(Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com)