Review of the work of the past five years
The past five years since the first session of the eleventh National People's Congress have been an extraordinary five years in China's development. We effectively responded to the severe impact of the international financial crisis and maintained steady and rapid economic development. Our GDP increased from 26.6 trillion yuan to 51.9 trillion yuan, ranking second in the world. Public revenue increased from 5.1 trillion yuan to 11.7 trillion yuan. A total of 58.7 million new urban jobs were created, and the per capita disposable income of urban residents rose by an annual average of 8.8 percent and the per capita net income of rural residents by 9.9 percent. Nine consecutive increases in grain output; Further progress was made in reform in key areas and the open economy reached a new level. We made China more innovative. Breakthroughs were made in manned spaceflight, the lunar exploration program, the manned deep-sea submersible, the beidou navigation satellite system, supercomputers and high-speed railways. We successfully hosted the Beijing Olympic and paralympic games and the Shanghai world expo. We won major victories in responding to the devastating earthquake in wenchuan, the yushu earthquake and the zhouqu mudslide, as well as in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. China's productive forces and overall national strength have risen significantly, the people's living standards and social security have risen significantly, and China's international standing and influence have risen significantly. We have successfully completed the eleventh five-year plan and implemented the twelfth five-year plan. Major progress was made in socialist economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological progress, and a new chapter was written in the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Major achievements and features of the past five years:
First, we effectively responded to the international financial crisis and promoted steady and rapid economic development.
Over the past five years, we have continued to cope with the severe impact of the international financial crisis. This crisis has rarely been seen in a century in terms of its intensity, speed of spread and depth of impact. We responded calmly, promptly and decisively adjusted the focus of macro-control, introduced ten measures to further boost domestic demand and promote steady and rapid economic growth, and fully implemented a package plan. An additional 4 trillion yuan of investment was made in the past two years, including 1.26 trillion yuan from the central government, mainly for building government-subsidized housing, improving the wellbeing of rural residents, developing infrastructure, developing social programs, improving the environment, promoting innovation, and conducting post-disaster recovery and reconstruction.
Over the past five years, more than 18 million government-subsidized housing units of various types were built, and more than 12 million housing units were renovated in run-down areas. We completed the reinforcement of 18,000 large, medium-sized and key small reservoirs, harnessed 24,500 kilometers of key small and medium-sized rivers, and increased the area of water-saving irrigation by 7.7 million hectares. A total of 19,700 kilometers of new railways were built, of which 8,951 kilometers were high-speed railways. Beijing-shanghai, beijing-guangzhou, harbin-dalian and a number of intercity railways were put into operation. 609,000 kilometers of new highways were added, including 42,000 kilometers of expressways, bringing the total length of expressways to 95,600 kilometers.
31 new airports; 602 additional 10,000-ton port berths; A number of cross-river and cross-sea Bridges and island connection projects have been completed. Major projects such as west-east gas transmission, west-east electricity transmission, and south-north water diversion are progressing smoothly or completed. Non-fossil energy has developed rapidly, and hydropower and wind power installations rank first in the world.
After reconstruction wenchuan, yushu, zhouqu and other disaster areas have undergone earth-shaking changes. These remarkable achievements have played a crucial role in our effective response to the severe impact of the international financial crisis and laid a solid foundation for long-term economic and social development, which has benefited and will continue to benefit hundreds of millions of people.
We have always strived to strike a proper balance between maintaining steady and rapid economic development, adjusting the economic structure and managing inflation expectations. We have made our macro policies more forward-looking, scientific and effective, and kept in mind the orientation, strength and priorities of our policies. When the global financial crisis was at its worst, we resolutely implemented a proactive fiscal policy and a moderately easy monetary policy, used a variety of fiscal policy tools to increase government spending and cut taxes structurally. We will effectively use monetary policy tools such as the deposit reserve ratio and interest rates to maintain reasonable growth of money and credit.
In response to changes in macroeconomic trends, we promptly adjusted the intensity of our policies, withdrew stimulus policies at an appropriate time, and implemented a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy. In the use of fiscal policies, we will give overall consideration to the needs of all parties and pay attention to comprehensive and balanced policies.
The government deficit as a percentage of GDP dropped from 2.8% in 2009 to around 1.5% last year, and the deficit to GDP and debt ratio remained at safe levels. We will strengthen comprehensive auditing of local government debt and management of local government financing platforms to effectively control risks and hidden dangers in economic operations. In the use of monetary policy, we have always struck a balance between maintaining steady growth, controlling prices and preventing risks.
The financial system functioned soundly, and the banking sector continued to strengthen its ability to fend off risks. The capital adequacy ratio increased from 8.4% at the end of 2007 to 13.3% at the end of last year, and the non-performing loan ratio dropped from 6.1% to 0.95%, remaining at a low level.
We adhered to unwavering efforts to regulate the real estate market, and contained excessive price rises. In 2012, the world's big economies growth speed, under the condition of various risks exposed constantly, we grasp the reasonable policy and the budget expenditure scale unchanged, optimize expenditure structure, reverse the downward trend, the comprehensive implementation to determine the main goal of the beginning of this year, the gross domestic product growth of 7.8%, 12.66 million new jobs for urban residents and the consumer price inflation fell to 2.6%, lay a good foundation for this year's economic development.
Over the past five years, China's macro economy maintained a sound momentum of steady and fast growth, relatively stable prices, sustained employment growth, and balanced international payments. China's GDP grew at an average annual rate of 9.3%, significantly higher than the global and emerging economies' growth rates over the same period, and its inflation rate was far lower than that of other emerging economies. Our economy is stable and dynamic.
Looking back at the past five years, in the face of severe challenges posed by the complex and volatile international economic situation and the continuing downturn, the central government made scientific judgment and decisive decisions, effectively avoiding major setbacks in China's modernization drive caused by huge external shocks.
Second, accelerate economic restructuring and improve the quality and efficiency of economic development.
We continued to implement the strategy of expanding domestic demand. As a result, the contribution of domestic demand to economic growth increased significantly, and the share of current account surplus in GDP dropped from 10.1% to 2.6%. The structure of household consumption was upgraded at a faster pace. By the end of 2012, the per capita living space in urban and rural areas was 32.9 square meters and 37.1 square meters, respectively 2.8 and 5.5 square meters more than in 2007.
Every 100 urban residents owned 21.5 family cars, an increase of 15.5 over 2007. Tourism and cultural consumption increased substantially. We will continue to follow a new path of industrialization with Chinese characteristics and vigorously promote industrial transformation and upgrading. China's manufacturing industry has become the largest in the world, with the added value of high-tech manufacturing growing at an average annual rate of 13.4% and becoming an important leading and pillar industry of the national economy.
A number of strategic emerging industries, including clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, next-generation information technology, biomedicine and high-end equipment manufacturing, developed rapidly. The overall level of product quality continues to improve. The value added of the service sector increased by 2.7 percentage points in GDP, making it the most employment-creating industry.
We made solid progress in conserving energy, reducing emissions, and protecting the ecological environment. Over the past five years, China has eliminated outdated iron-making capacity of 117 million tons, steelmaking capacity of 78 million tons and cement capacity of 775 million tons. A new daily sewage treatment capacity of 46 million tons; Energy consumption per unit of GDP fell by 17.2%, chemical oxygen demand by 15.7%, and total sulfur dioxide emissions by 17.5%.
We revised environmental air quality standards and increased monitoring of fine particulate matter such as PM2.5. Over the past five years, 29.53 million hectares of land were afforested. Desertification was halted on 11.96 million hectares of land. Soil erosion on 246,000 square kilometers of land was brought under comprehensive control.
Further implement the strategy of regional development, overall, enacted the national main body function area planning, formulate the development of the western region new decade guidelines and a series of regional development planning, accelerate the leap development of Tibet, xinjiang and other regions for implementation new rural poverty alleviation and development program for ten years, to increase the poverty line to 2300 yuan (2010), strengthen the concentrated special difficult areas crucial for poverty alleviation.
Major development indicators in the central and western regions and the northeast grew faster than the national average. Industrial transformation and upgrading in the eastern region accelerated. We actively yet prudently carried out urbanization. Over the past five years, 84.63 million rural residents migrated to cities and towns, and the urbanization rate increased from 45.9% to 52.6%. Development between urban and rural areas and between regions became more balanced.
Third, we must do our work related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers well and consolidate and strengthen the position of agriculture as the foundation of the economy.
We pressed ahead with agricultural modernization in the process of deepening industrialization, application of information technology and urbanization, and focused our efforts on accomplishing major tasks that affect the long-term development of agriculture and rural areas and the vital interests of farmers. We increased government spending on agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. The central government spent 4.47 trillion yuan on agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, an average annual growth rate of 23.5%.
We established a sound system for subsidizing grain farmers and a mechanism for subsidizing major grain-producing areas, and raised subsidies year by year and expanded their coverage, with subsidies increasing from 63.9 billion yuan in 2007 to 192.3 billion yuan in 2012.
We strengthened financial services in rural areas, and increased the outstanding balance of loans to farmers from 6.12 trillion yuan at the end of 2007 to 17.63 trillion yuan at the end of 2012. We implemented the policy of minimum purchase prices for grain, and raised the total minimum purchase prices for wheat and rice by 41.7 percent to 86.7 percent. We strengthened protection of arable land, safeguarded farmers' rights and interests, and made extensive preparations for improving the system of expropriation and compensation for rural collective land.
We will accelerate progress in agricultural science and technology and the development of modern agriculture, and increase support for the breeding of superior varieties and breeds, the prevention and control of animal and plant epidemics, and the popularization of agricultural technologies at the community level. We made great efforts to build water conservancy facilities, improve rural land, and develop high-grade farmland. China's overall grain production capacity rose to a new high, and total grain output remained above 50 million tons for six consecutive years and increased year by year.
We improved rural infrastructure, including water, power, roads, and natural gas. We built or upgraded 1.465 million kilometers of rural roads, renovated dilapidated houses for 10.33 million rural households, and provided safe drinking water and electricity to more than 300 million rural residents and 4.45 million people in areas without electricity.
We have actively guided surplus rural labor forces to switch to non-agricultural industries. The per capita net income of rural residents has continued to grow rapidly, and the relative income gap between urban and rural residents has gradually narrowed since 2010.
We will deepen comprehensive rural reform. We basically completed the reform of the ownership system of collective forests, comprehensively promoted the confirmation, promulgation and certification of collective land ownership in rural areas, and carried out trials to register contracted rural land-use rights. The sound situation of agricultural and rural development has provided important support for coping with the severe impact of the international financial crisis and various natural disasters and stabilizing the overall situation of economic and social development.
Fourth, we will continue to implement the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and enhance our core support for economic and social development.
We accelerated the implementation of the national plan for medium - and long-term scientific and technological development, formulated and implemented the national plan for medium - and long-term educational reform and development, the national plan for medium - and long-term human resources development, and the national strategy for intellectual property rights.
We will give priority to developing education. Government spending on education totaled 7.79 trillion yuan over the past five years, an average annual growth rate of 21.58 percent and accounting for 4 percent of China's GDP in 2012. The focus of educational resources was given to rural, remote, ethnic and poverty-stricken areas, and marked progress was made in educational equity.
We made nine-year compulsory education free in all urban and rural areas, benefiting 160 million students. We implemented the three-year action plan for preschool education, and eased the problem of access to kindergartens.
The state financial aid system has been constantly improved, and a financial aid system for students from poor families has been put in place, covering all stages of preschool education and postgraduate education. We implemented a tuition-free policy for secondary vocational education, covering all rural students, students majoring in agriculture in urban areas, and students from poor families.
We have basically solved the problem of children of rural migrant workers receiving compulsory education in cities, and now 12.6 million children with rural household registration receive compulsory education in cities. We implemented a plan to improve the nutrition of more than 30 million rural students receiving compulsory education.
We will complete safety projects for primary and secondary school buildings. We will accelerate the development of basic vocational education capabilities and infrastructure for special education. Performance pay was implemented in compulsory education schools, and free education was offered to normal university students in normal universities directly under the Ministry of Education.
We raised the quality and level of education across the board, and raised the gross enrollment rate for higher education to 30 percent. The education level of the Chinese people has been greatly improved, and the average length of schooling for people over the age of 15 has reached more than nine years.
We will vigorously promote independent innovation. The central government spent 872.9 billion yuan on science and technology over the past five years, with an average annual growth rate of over 18%. Spending on research and experimental development increased from 1.4 percent of GDP in 2007 to 1.97 percent in 2012, and r&d spending by enterprises accounted for more than 74 percent.
We issued guidelines on deepening reform of the science and technology system and accelerating the development of a national innovation system. We thoroughly implemented the national technology innovation project and knowledge innovation project, steadily advanced major national science and technology projects, and built a number of national engineering centers, key laboratories, and enterprise technology centers. We strengthened basic research and frontier exploration, made breakthroughs in a number of key core technologies, and filled gaps in a number of major products and equipment.
We will thoroughly implement the strategy of strengthening China with talent. With the focus on high-level and highly skilled personnel, we strengthened the development of all kinds of personnel, with an increase of 8.6 million specialized and technical personnel and 8.8 million highly skilled personnel, respectively.
We will vigorously strengthen cultural development. A network of public cultural facilities covering both urban and rural areas has been put in place, and all museums, libraries and cultural centers are open to the public free of charge.
The transformation of state-owned for-profit cultural institutions into enterprises has been basically completed, and the reform of the internal mechanism of non-profit cultural institutions has been deepened. Philosophy and the social sciences, the press and publishing, radio, television, film, literature and art flourished, and the cultural industry developed rapidly.
Important progress was made in protecting cultural relics and in protecting and inheriting intangible cultural heritage. Cultural exchanges with other countries became more active. New progress was made in national fitness programs and competitive sports.
Fifth, we put the people's interests first and worked hard to ensure and improve their wellbeing.
We made employment a top priority in ensuring and improving people's wellbeing and implemented a proactive employment policy. We increased employment of key groups of people and improved vocational training and employment services. Over the past five years, we invested a total of 197.3 billion yuan in special employment funds, helping 28 million college graduates and 8.3 million urban residents with employment difficulties find jobs, thus maintaining overall stability in the employment situation.
We made comprehensive progress in developing the social security system, established a new old-age insurance system for rural residents and a old-age insurance system for non-working urban residents, and extended basic old-age insurance coverage to all urban and rural residents, with 790 million people participating in various old-age insurance programs.
The basic pension for enterprise retirees has increased from 700 yuan per person per month in 2004 to 1,721 yuan now. We will properly solve the problems of social insurance for retirees of closed or bankrupt enterprises, employees of enterprises with financial difficulties, employees of old work-related injuries in state-owned enterprises, and retirees of collective enterprises who have not participated in the insurance program.
We will deepen reform of the medical and health system, the establishment of the new rural cooperative medical care system and the system of basic medical insurance for urban residents, the basic medical insurance system has been formed, the medical insurance more than 1.3 billion people, to strengthen the construction of urban and rural grassroots medical and health service system, establish a system for basic drugs and medical institutions at the grassroots level, pilot steadily push forward reform of public hospitals.
The national health level has been further improved, and the average life expectancy has reached 75 years. We will improve the systems for providing basic living allowances, medical care, education, and legal assistance to urban and rural residents, and reform and improve the systems for providing assistance and protection to orphans, vagrant children, and five guarantees for rural residents.
We promulgated and implemented the new program for the development of Chinese women and children, and protected their legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law. We established a sound system for providing low-income housing in urban areas and gradually expanded its coverage, reaching 12.5 percent by the end of 2012.
Great achievements have been made in the development of the social security system. We strengthened and made innovations in social management, established a sound emergency management system, gave full play to the self-governance and service functions of urban and rural communities, and maintained social harmony and stability.
Sixth, deepen reform in important areas and enhance the vitality of economic and social development.
We lost no time in advancing reform and made significant progress in some important areas. We vigorously promoted reform of the fiscal and tax systems, improved the system of transfer payments, established a mechanism for ensuring basic funding for county-level governments, and improved the capacity of community-level governments to provide basic public services.
A budget system consisting of budgets for public finance, government-managed funds, state capital operations, and social insurance funds was basically put in place, and all extrabudgetary funds were put under budgetary management.
We unified the tax systems for domestic and foreign enterprises, reformed the value-added tax system, reformed the prices and taxes of refined oil products, carried out trials to replace business tax with value-added tax, reformed the resource tax system, and strengthened the role of the fiscal and tax systems in accelerating the transformation of the pattern of economic development.
Comprehensively deepen financial system reform, state-owned commercial Banks reform successfully completed, orderly progress was made in reform of policy-based financial institutions, rural credit cooperatives reform, new banking regulatory standards implementation, the growth enterprise market, stock index futures and margin trading launched, the insurance industry reform and opening-up, continuously improve the RMB exchange rate formation mechanism, interest rate marketization and steady progress was made in reform of capital account convertibility, macro-prudential policy framework, to expand the use of the yuan in cross-border trade and investment.
China's banking, securities and insurance industries have significantly improved their resilience to risks and international competitiveness, laying a solid foundation for successfully coping with the impact of the international financial crisis.
Reform of state-owned enterprises has been deepened, their quality improved and their competitiveness significantly enhanced. We formulated guidelines and detailed rules for encouraging and guiding the sound development of nongovernmental investment, and improved the environment for the development of the non-public sector of the economy. We will establish an ecological compensation system, and carry out pilot projects to trade emission permits and carbon emission permits. Efforts were made to reform public institutions according to their categories.
7. Unswervingly expanding opening-up and comprehensively improving the performance of the open economy.
We actively respond to dramatic changes in the external environment and a stable external policies and measures in time, implement the strategy of market diversification, the total import and export grew by an average of 12.2% a year, from the third to the second in the world, including export volume ranks the first in the world, accounting for the international market share of more than two percentage points higher than that of 2007, import and export structure optimization, further consolidate trade great-power status.
Over the past five years, a total of us $552.8 billion of foreign capital has been utilized. We accelerated the implementation of the strategy of "going global" and encouraged enterprises of all types to invest and operate overseas. Non-financial outward direct investment increased from $24.8 billion in 2007 to $77.2 billion in 2012, growing at an average annual rate of 25.5%.
Opening to the outside world has given a strong boost to China's economic development and structural improvement. It has absorbed advanced technology and managerial expertise, increased employment and workers' incomes, and contributed significantly to world economic recovery.
Eighth, we effectively strengthened government self-improvement and further deepened reform of the administrative system.
We will push forward the reform of government institutions and initially establish a institutional framework for large departments with unified functions. We have always taken scientific and democratic decision-making, law-based administration, openness in government affairs, a sound oversight system and clean government as the basic principles for government work. We have adopted a series of new measures and made new strides in standardizing the exercise of administrative power, and in building a government that serves, is accountable, is governed by the rule of law, and is clean.
We will adhere to scientific, democratic and law-based decision-making, and improve government decision-making procedures such as public participation, expert demonstration, risk assessment, legality review and collective discussion.
We deepened reform of the system of administrative examination and approval, canceling or adjusting 498 items requiring administrative examination and approval in two rounds over the past five years.
We will make government affairs more transparent, with the focus on making government budgets and final accounts more transparent, as well as spending on official receptions, the purchase and use of government cars, and overseas trips on business, so that the people can better understand the work of the government and better supervise its actions.
The intensity that audit supervises is bigger and bigger, result is more and more apparent. We will comprehensively strengthen efforts to combat corruption and promote integrity, and strengthen oversight and management of leading cadres' integrity and self-discipline. We will explore ways to establish a government performance management system, establish and effectively implement an administrative accountability system focusing on chief executives, and work hard to improve administrative efficiency.
Fellow deputies, Over the past five years, we have implemented the law on regional ethnic autonomy, improved the policy system for supporting the development of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas, and brought new vitality to the cause of ethnic unity and progress.
We fully implemented the policy on freedom of religious belief, and made management of religious affairs more law-based and standardized.
We earnestly implemented the policy on overseas Chinese affairs, protected the legitimate rights and interests of overseas Chinese, returned overseas Chinese and their relatives in accordance with the law, and gave full play to the unique advantages of overseas Chinese affairs resources.
New progress was made in strengthening national defense and the armed forces. Major achievements were made in the revolution in military affairs with Chinese characteristics. The armed forces made coordinated and comprehensive progress in becoming more revolutionary, modernized and standardized.
Work in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan was further strengthened. Hong Kong and Macao maintained prosperity and stability, and their exchanges and cooperation with the mainland reached a new level. We promoted a major turning point in cross-straits relations, fully realized the direct and two-way links between the two sides of the straits, signed and implemented the cross-straits economic cooperation framework agreement, formed a pattern of all-round exchanges between the two sides, and opened up a new stage of peaceful development of cross-straits relations.
Major progress was made in China's all-round diplomacy. We actively promote relations with major countries, strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation relations with neighboring countries, China - asean free trade area, promote the development of regional cooperation mechanisms such as the Shanghai cooperation organization, deepening traditional friendship and cooperation with other developing countries, to take an active part in tackling the international financial crisis, climate change and other global issues of international cooperation, promoting international and regional hotspot issues, for China's reform, development and stability, created a favorable international environment for prosperity made important contribution to the development of world peace and stability.
Fellow deputies, The achievements of the past five years have not come easily. This is the result of the overall planning and correct leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the concerted efforts and hard work of the entire party and the people of all ethnic groups in China.
On behalf of the State Council, I wish to express our sincere thanks to all workers, farmers, intellectuals, cadres, officers and fighters of the people's liberation army, armed police and public security police. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the people of all our ethnic groups, the democratic parties, people's organizations and people from all walks of life. I wish to express my sincere thanks to our compatriots in the Hong Kong special administrative region, the Macao special administrative region and Taiwan, as well as to overseas Chinese. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the governments, international organizations and friends from all over the world who have shown concern and support for China's modernization drive.
We are keenly aware that there are still many problems in economic and social development.
The main problems are: unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development remains a prominent problem; The contradiction between downward pressure on economic growth and excess production capacity has intensified. The problems of rising production and operation cost and insufficient innovation ability coexist; The contradiction between the slowing growth of government revenue and the increase in fixed government expenditures is prominent.
Potential risks in the financial sector; The industrial structure is unreasonable and the foundation of agriculture is still weak. The contradiction between economic development and resources and environment is increasingly sharp. There is a large gap in development between urban and rural areas and between regions and in income distribution among residents.
Problems affecting people's immediate interests, such as education, employment, social security, medical care, housing, the ecological environment, food and drug safety, production safety, and public order, have increased markedly. There are many institutional and institutional obstacles to scientific development. The transformation of government functions is not in place, and some areas are prone to corruption.
Some of these problems have accumulated over a long period of time, some have arisen in the course of economic and social development, and some are caused by shortcomings and inadequacies in the work of the government. We must be highly responsible to the country and the people, work harder to do a good job, speed up the solution of these problems, never live up to the expectations of the people!
Ii. Overall requirements for economic and social development in 2013, main expected targets and macroeconomic policies
The 18th national congress of the CPC scientifically reviewed the work of the past five years and the historic achievements made since the 16th national congress of the CPC, set the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and deepening reform and opening up in an all-round way, and made comprehensive arrangements for further advancing the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The year 2013 is the first year for fully implementing the guiding principles of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, a crucial year for implementing the 12th five-year plan, and an important year for laying a solid foundation for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
China is still in an important period of strategic opportunities where much can be done in its development. China's economic and social development has many favorable conditions and positive factors, but it also faces many risks and challenges.
The underlying impact of the international financial crisis continues to emerge, and the world economic recovery is fraught with uncertainty and instability. We should not only be aware of the positive aspects of the situation and strengthen confidence, but also be aware of the complexity of the situation, be more aware of potential dangers and of a sense of urgency, and work conscientiously and earnestly to do a good job.
General requirements of this work is: in-depth study and fully implement the party's eighteen big spirit, holding the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, deng xiaoping theory and "three represents" important thought, the concept of scientific development as guidance, closely around the theme of the main line, in order to improve the quality and efficiency of economic growth as the center, deepen the reform and opening up, implement the strategy of innovation, seek improvement in stability, development innovation, the real start, comprehensively promote the socialist economic construction, political construction, cultural construction, social construction, and ecological civilization construction, realize the sustainable and healthy economic development and social harmony and stability.
The main targets for economic and social development this year are as follows: GDP will grow by around 7.5%, and development will be better coordinated. The increase in the cpi was around 3.5%. More than 9 million new urban jobs were created, and the registered urban unemployment rate was below 4.6 percent. Real per capita income for urban and rural residents will increase in step with economic growth, and labor remuneration will increase in step with the improvement of labor productivity. The balance of payments position has further improved. Here, focus on economic growth and overall level of prices two indicators to make some explanation.
On economic growth targets. This is a comprehensive indicator that all parties pay close attention to. This year's economic growth target of around 7.5% is based on two considerations. On the one hand, we need to continue to seize opportunities and promote development. In recent years, China's manufacturing industry has accumulated considerable capacity, its infrastructure has been greatly improved, its supporting capacity has been significantly enhanced, its savings rate is high, and its labor force is still large.
We must optimize the allocation and use of factors of production, maintain a reasonable rate of growth, provide necessary conditions for increasing employment and improving people's wellbeing, and create a stable environment for changing the growth model and making structural adjustments. We must coordinate economic growth with the potential growth rate, and adapt it to the supply capacity of factors of production and the bearing capacity of resources and the environment.
On the other hand, in accordance with the requirements of the scientific outlook on development, we should guide all sectors of the economy to focus their efforts on accelerating the transformation of the economic development pattern and adjusting the economic structure, and on improving the quality and efficiency of economic growth so as to promote sustained and sound economic development. On balance, it is necessary and appropriate to set this year's economic growth target at around 7.5%, and hard work is required to achieve this target.
On the general level of prices. Keeping overall prices basically stable has always been an important goal of macro-control. Last year, the rise in the cpi dropped to 2.6%. This is an important achievement in controlling inflation and is also related to the overall performance of the economy.
This year, there is still considerable inflationary pressure, mainly in the following aspects: the prices of land, labor and other factors, as well as the prices of agricultural products and services. Major developed countries have implemented loose monetary policies and kept increasing them. Imported inflationary pressure should not be ignored. We need to leave some space to adjust the prices of energy and resources. The tail - end effect of last year's price rise was about 1 per cent.
We have made the choice to keep the increase in the cpi at around 3.5% after taking into full consideration all factors. We will ensure the supply of important commodities, invigorate their circulation, reduce logistics costs, strengthen oversight over market prices, and keep overall prices basically stable.
To achieve these goals, we must continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, maintain policy continuity and stability, and be more forward-looking, targeted and flexible.
We will continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy. We will give better play to the role of a proactive fiscal policy in stabilizing growth, adjusting the economic structure, promoting reform, and benefiting the people.
First, we will appropriately increase the fiscal deficit and national debt. This year, we plan to run a deficit of 1.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 400 billion yuan over last year's budget. This includes 850 billion yuan in central government deficit and 350 billion yuan in bond issuance on behalf of local governments. This is mainly due to the lagging effect of structural tax cuts. Revenue will not grow too fast this year, but fixed government expenditures will increase. In particular, we need to increase expenditures for ensuring and improving people's wellbeing and maintain support for economic growth and structural adjustment.
At the same time, China's debt-to-gdp ratio is relatively low. After increasing the deficit this year, the deficit to GDP ratio will be around 2%, which is generally a safe level.
Second, we will improve the structural tax reduction policy in combination with tax reform. The focus is to accelerate the pilot work of replacing business tax with value-added tax, improve the pilot measures, and expand the scope of pilot areas and industries at an appropriate time.
Third, we focused on improving the structure of government expenditures. We will continue to give priority to education, medicine, health care, social security and other areas of people's wellbeing as well as weak links, strictly control general expenditures such as administrative expenses, and run all programs with diligence and thrift. Investment from the central budget will be mainly made in government-subsidized housing projects, infrastructure projects such as agriculture, water conservancy and urban pipe networks, social programs and other projects to improve people's wellbeing, energy conservation and emission reduction, and the ecological environment.
Fourth, we will continue to strengthen management of local government debt. We will properly handle debt repayment and follow-up financing for projects under construction, actively promote the development of a system for managing local government debt, and appropriately control the level of local government debt.
We will continue to implement a prudent monetary policy. We will strike a balance between promoting economic growth, keeping prices stable and preventing financial risks.
First, we will improve the macro-prudential policy framework and give full play to the counter-cyclical role of monetary policy. We have set the target for the growth of M2, the broad money supply, at around 13%. We will use a comprehensive range of monetary policy tools to regulate market liquidity, maintain reasonable growth in money and credit, and appropriately expand social financing. We will improve the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, strengthen coordination between financial supervision and monetary policy, and constantly improve regulatory standards and methods.
Second, we will promote optimal allocation of financial resources. We will guide financial institutions to increase financial support for economic restructuring, especially for agriculture, rural areas and farmers, small and micro businesses, and strategic emerging industries, so as to meet the funding needs of key national projects under construction or expansion. We will expand financing channels for the real economy and reduce financing costs for the real economy. We will promote steady and sound development of the capital market.
Third, we will ensure that no systemic or regional financial risks occur. We will guide financial institutions to operate prudently, strengthen oversight over local and regional risks and the risks of off-balance-sheet operations of financial institutions, and make financial support for economic development more sustainable.
Suggestions for the work of the government this year
Based on my experience in the past decade, especially in the past five years, I propose the following Suggestions for the major work of the government this year.
1. Accelerating the transformation of the growth model and promoting sustained and sound economic development
All the achievements in China's socialist modernization drive are based on sustained and sound economic development. Without economic development, nothing can be accomplished. Our country is still in the and has long been at the primary stage of socialism's basic national conditions does not change, people's increasing material and cultural needs and backward social production contradiction between the social principal contradiction does not change, our country is the world's largest developing country's international status has not changed, the development is still the key to solve all problems in our country.
We must continue to focus on economic development, concentrate on development, and pursue development. As long as we firmly grasp the important period of strategic opportunities for development, respect the law of development, innovate development concepts, solve development problems, accelerate the transformation of the pattern of economic development, promote transformation through development and seek development through transformation, we will surely achieve sustained and sound economic development.
We should unswervingly take expanding domestic demand as a long-term strategic guideline for economic development and give full play to the fundamental role of consumption and the key role of investment. The difficulty and focus of expanding domestic demand lies in consumption, and so does its potential. To expand household consumption, we need to work hard to improve our consumption capacity, stabilize our consumption expectations, enhance our willingness to consume, and improve the environment for consumption, so that consumption will continue to drive economic growth.
At present, the role of investment in promoting economic growth should not be underestimated. China has both investment capacity and investment demand. The key lies in selecting the right direction, optimizing the structure and improving the quality and efficiency of investment. Government investment plays a very important role in guiding social investment, but its share in the total social investment is becoming smaller and smaller. We must further relax market access for private investment and stimulate its vitality.
We will vigorously transform the pattern of economic development and accelerate industrial restructuring. Productivity development level of our country has a multilayered, room for manoeuvre is very big, both traditional industries and emerging industries and labor-intensive industries or capital intensive industry, have development space, it is important to optimize the allocation of resources and industrial layout, to solve the excess capacity, lack of core technology, the problem of low value-added products, to solve the low level repeated construction and the area industrial structure convergence problem.
We must accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, vigorously develop new and high technology industries, and improve product quality and market competitiveness. We will strengthen policy guidance, encourage enterprises to merge and recombine across industries, regions and ownees, and use the market mechanism to eliminate the fittest. We will promote the sound development of strategic emerging industries, with the focus on expanding domestic market application and tackling key technical problems. We will actively integrate it application with industrialization, accelerate the construction of a new generation of information infrastructure, and promote the widespread application of information network technology.
We will continue to attach equal importance to producer services and consumer services, combine modern services with traditional services, and further develop and strengthen the service sector.
We need to meet the people's expectations for a better living environment and strengthen ecological progress and environmental protection. The ecological environment has a bearing on the well-being of the people and the future of our nation. We should adhere to the basic state policy of conserving resources and protecting the environment, and promote green, circular and low-carbon development.
We will vigorously conserve and recycle energy and resources, focus on energy conservation in industry, transportation, buildings, public institutions, control total energy consumption, and reduce energy consumption, material consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions.
To speed up the adjustment of economic structure and layout, to improve the system of standards, rules and regulations, take effective measures for prevention and control of pollution, promote the transformation of mode of production and way of life, determined to solve the good relationship between the masses of the atmosphere, water, soil and other vital interests prominent environmental pollution, improve environmental quality, safeguard the people's health, with practical action to let people see the hope.
We need to do a good job in meteorology, geology and earthquakes and improve our ability to prevent and mitigate natural disasters. We will optimize the pattern of land and space development, rationally control the intensity of development, and adjust the spatial structure.
We will accelerate the reform of the household registration system, the social management system, and related systems, make people who have moved from rural areas eligible for permanent urban residency in an orderly manner, gradually extend basic public services to all permanent urban residents, and create a fair institutional environment for people to move freely and live and work in peace and contentment. In the construction of villages, we need to preserve rural features, create a livable environment, and ensure that urbanization and the building of a new countryside interact in a positive way.
3. Improving people's material and cultural lives in an all-round way, with the focus on ensuring and improving the people's wellbeing.
One of the important lessons from our response to the sudden outbreak of SARS in 2003 is that we need to coordinate economic and social development. In recent years, while developing the economy, we have paid more attention to ensuring and improving people's wellbeing and developing social programs.
Through unremitting efforts, China's economic and social development has become more coordinated. At present, profound changes have taken place in the social structure, the forms of social organizations and the pattern of social interests. We must take ensuring and improving people's wellbeing as the starting point and goal of all government work, give it a higher priority, and focus on social development.
We will do everything possible to create more jobs. Adhere to the implementation of employment priority strategy and a more active employment policy, through the steady economic growth and adjust the economic structure to increase jobs, strengthen professional skill training, improve their employment ability, increasing investment and policy support, perfecting the employment service system, to encourage entrepreneurship to create more employment opportunities, do a good job in key groups to promote sustainable urban and rural residents income growth.
We will improve the social security system. We will adhere to the principle of full coverage, basic coverage, multi-tiered and sustainable social security, constantly expand the coverage of social security, raise the level of overall planning and social security, improve and link up various social security systems, make them more equitable, adapt to social mobility and ensure sustainability.
Basic pensions for enterprise retirees will continue to rise by 10% this year, and subsistence allowances for urban and rural residents and subsidies for entitled groups will be further raised. We should increase support for the development of social old-age services and child welfare institutions.
We will deepen the reform and development of medical and health services. We will consolidate and improve the system of essential drugs and the new mechanism for operating community-level medical and health care institutions, speed up the reform of public hospitals, and encourage nongovernmental investment in medical services. We will support the development of traditional Chinese medicine and ethnic minority medicine. We will improve the medical insurance system for all, establish a mechanism to guarantee and assist people with serious and serious diseases, and carry out trials to provide insurance for 20 major diseases, including childhood leukemia.
This year, government subsidies for the new rural cooperative medical care system and basic medical insurance for non-working urban residents will be raised from 240 yuan to 280 yuan per person per year, and per capita spending on basic public health services will be raised from 25 yuan to 30 yuan.
We will gradually improve the population policy. We will adhere to the basic state policy of family planning, adapt to the changing trend of China's population size and structure, and properly address the problems of population size, quality, structure and distribution in an integrated way, so as to promote balanced and long-term population development. We will attach great importance to the development of undertakings for the aged, effectively protect the rights and interests of women and minors, and care for and support undertakings for the disabled.
We will strengthen and make innovations in social management. We will improve the way the government provides public services, strengthen community-level social management and service systems, improve the systems of self-government for villagers and urban residents, ensure that the people directly exercise their democratic rights in accordance with the law, and manage community-level public affairs and public welfare undertakings.
We will reform the management system for social organizations and guide their healthy and orderly development. Establish and improve the safeguard mechanism of rights and interests, improve the people's mediation, administrative mediation and judicial mediation work of the system, a sound system of legal aid, promote the law-related complaint involving lawsuit reform, open and standardize the aspirations, interests coordination, rights and interests protection channel, improve the important decision social stability risk assessment and emergency event, management mechanism, to maintain social public safety, promote social harmony and stability.
Food and drug safety is the outstanding problem of attention, to reform and improve the food and drug safety supervision system, strengthen the comprehensive coordination, implement enterprise's main body responsibility, strict regulation in the whole process of the source from production to consumption, speed up the formation of accord with national conditions, scientific and reasonable system of food and drug safety, enhance the level of the food and drug safety. We will strengthen the public safety system and the safety production infrastructure for enterprises, and curb major and major safety accidents.
We will strengthen regulation of the real estate market and the construction of low-income housing. We will resolutely curb speculative and investment demand, promptly improve the responsibility system for stabilizing housing prices and the policy system for regulating the real estate market, and improve the long-term mechanism for the steady and sound development of the real estate market.
We will continue to build and manage government-subsidized housing so that the people can live in comfortable and comfortable housing. This year, 4.7 million government-subsidized urban housing units will be basically completed, construction of another 6.3 million units will start, and we will continue to renovate dilapidated rural housing.
Education, science and technology play a fundamental, guiding and overall role in the modernization drive. Culture is the lifeblood of the nation and the spiritual home of the people.
We will continue to give priority to education. At present, China's annual government expenditure on education has exceeded 2 trillion yuan and will continue to increase. We must make good use of this money to satisfy the people.
We should further deepen comprehensive reform of education and effectively solve major problems of general concern to the society. We will promote balanced development of compulsory education, accelerate the development of modern vocational education, improve the quality of education at all levels and of all types, make education more equitable, and provide strong human resources support for China's development.
We will deepen reform of the system for managing science and technology. We will closely integrate science and technology with the economy, and strive to build a system of technological innovation in which enterprises play a dominant role, the market is oriented, and enterprises, universities, and research institutes are integrated. We will focus on areas of strategic importance that bear on overall and long-term development, and strengthen basic research and research in cutting-edge technologies.
We will improve the mechanism for the open sharing of scientific and technological resources, improve fiscal, taxation, financial, industrial, technological and personnel policies that support the development of science and technology and the application and transformation of achievements, create a fair and open environment for innovation, give full play to the enthusiasm and initiative of scientific and technological workers, and stimulate the creativity of the whole society.
We will steadily advance cultural development. We will integrate cultural reform and development into the overall plan for economic and social development, and include it in the system for assessing the performance of governments at all levels and leading officials, so as to promote all-round cultural prosperity and rapid development of the cultural industry.
The government should fulfill its responsibility to develop nonprofit cultural programs, accelerate key cultural projects that benefit the people, and improve the system of public cultural services. We will carry out a nationwide fitness campaign to promote the all-round development of mass and competitive sports.
We will vigorously strengthen education in public morality, professional ethics, family virtues, and personal integrity. We will promote the development of a credit system, promote business and social integrity with the integrity of government affairs, and foster good social practices.
4. Deepening reform and opening up with greater political courage and wisdom.
Reform and opening up are the fundamental driving force for China's development and progress. Only by persisting in reform and opening up can we continue to advance our cause. China's reform has entered a crucial stage. We must further emancipate our minds, comprehensively advance economic, political, cultural and social reforms, and constantly deepen them.
We will further improve the socialist market economy. We will unwaveringly consolidate and develop the public sector of the economy, encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public sector of the economy, and create an institutional environment in which economic entities under all forms of ownership have equal access to factors of production, fair access to market competition, and equal protection by law. We will deepen reform of state-owned enterprises and key industries.
We will accelerate reform of the fiscal and taxation systems, straighten out the relationship between the financial resources of the central and local governments and their powers, improve the public finance system, establish a local tax system, and promote the formation of a tax system conducive to structural optimization and social equity.
We will deepen reform of the financial system, improve the modern financial system that promotes the development of the real economy, improve the competitiveness of the banking, securities, insurance and other industries, accelerate the development of a multi-tiered capital market, steadily push forward market-oriented reform of interest rates and exchange rates, expand the cross-border use of the renminbi, and gradually make the renminbi convertible under capital accounts.
We will deepen reform of the investment and financing systems, advance price reform, and improve the pricing mechanism for resource products. We will continue to actively yet prudently carry out classified reform of public institutions. The income distribution system is a fundamental and fundamental system in economic and social development and an important cornerstone of the socialist market economic system.
We have formulated several guidelines on deepening reform of the income distribution system, and we need to promptly study and formulate specific policies to ensure that the system is in place and policies are implemented, effectively address problems in income distribution, narrow the income distribution gap, and ensure that the fruits of development benefit all the people in a more equitable way.
We will promote the building of socialist democracy and the rule of law. We should uphold the principal position of the people, develop more extensive, fuller and sounder people's democracy, ensure that the people enjoy extensive rights and freedoms in accordance with the law, and promote all-round human development.
We will uphold the rule of law, fully respect the authority of the constitution and laws, ensure that the powers of decision-making, enforcement and oversight are mutually restrictive and coordinated, and ensure that state administrative organs exercise their powers in accordance with statutory limits and procedures. We will continue to transform the functions of the government, separate government functions from enterprises, government assets, government operations, and social organizations, and establish a service-oriented government with scientific functions, an optimized structure, honesty, efficiency, and people's satisfaction.
We will continue to improve our work style, maintain close ties with the people, advocate hard work, practice thrift, combat extravagance and waste, and overcome formalism and bureaucracy. We will uphold democratic oversight, legal oversight, and oversight by public opinion, and improve the system of checks and oversight over the exercise of power so that the people can oversee power and exercise it in a transparent manner.
We will continue to combat corruption, strengthen efforts to build a clean government, and make institutional changes to the excessive concentration of power and lack of checks on it. We will ensure that officials are honest, the government is clean, and political integrity is maintained.
Profound changes at home and abroad have raised new and higher requirements for China's open economy. We should adhere to the basic state policy of opening up and adopt a more proactive strategy of opening up.
We will continue to combine export stability with import expansion, promote the transformation of foreign trade from scale expansion to higher quality and efficiency, and from cost and price advantages to comprehensive competitive advantages, and promote the formation of new export competitive advantages centered on technology, brand, quality and service. We will combine the use of foreign capital with outbound investment, support enterprises in going global, and open up new space for economic development.
We will continue to combine deepening opening up in the coastal areas with opening up in the inland and border areas, and accelerate the formation of a balanced and coordinated pattern of regional opening in which each has its own characteristics, complementary advantages, division of labor and coordination. We should continue to open up to both developed and developing countries and expand and deepen the convergence of interests with all parties.
Fellow deputies, We must fully and correctly implement the party's policy on ethnic groups, uphold and improve the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and consolidate and develop socialist ethnic relations featuring equality, solidarity, mutual assistance and harmony.
We will fully implement the party's basic policy on religious work, promote harmonious relations between religions, and give full play to the positive role of religious figures and believers in economic and social development.
We will earnestly implement the party's policy on overseas Chinese affairs and support overseas Chinese, returned overseas Chinese and their relatives in showing concern for and participating in the modernization drive and the great cause of China's peaceful reunification.
We should accelerate the modernization of national defense and the armed forces, build solid national defense and a strong armed forces, resolutely safeguard China's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and safeguard China's peaceful development.
We will adhere to the principles of "one country, two systems", "Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong", "Macao people governing Macao" and a high degree of autonomy, unite with our compatriots in Hong Kong and Macao, and maintain their long-term prosperity and stability.
We must adhere to the central committee's major policy on Taiwan, fully implement the important thought on the peaceful development of cross-straits relations, consolidate and deepen the political, economic, cultural and social foundation for the peaceful development of cross-straits relations, and accomplish the great cause of national reunification in the course of working together to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
We should continue to hold high the banner of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit, unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development, adhere to an independent foreign policy of peace, and promote lasting peace and common prosperity in the world.
Fellow deputies, In retrospect, we have made extraordinary achievements on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Looking to the future, the great motherland has shown unprecedented bright prospects. Under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with comrade xi jinping as general secretary, let us unite as one and work hard to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.