Highlights: Premier Li's government work report
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E-mail Xinhua, March 5, 2014
Following are the highlights of a government work report distributed to media ahead of the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Wednesday morning.
Major targets for 2014
-- Gross domestic product (GDP) grows about 7.5 percent.
-- Consumer Price Index (CPI) increase will be kept around 3.5 percent.
-- Add 10 million more urban jobs.
-- Keep the registered urban unemployment rate at a maximum 4.6 percent.
-- The government will work to increase personal incomes in step with economic development.
Fiscal and monetary policies for 2014
-- China will continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy.
-- The government budget deficit for this year is projected to be 1.35 trillion yuan (218 billion US dollars), an increase of 150 billion yuan over last year, and accounts for 2.1 percent of GDP.
-- The broad monetary supply (M2) is forecast to grow by around 13 percent.
Three principles
-- The government should create impetus by deepening reform.
-- The government should keep economic performance within a proper range.
-- The government should work hard to raise the quality and returns of development, promote industrial upgrading and keep improving people's wellbeing.
Nine major tasks for 2014
-- Making breakthroughs in reform in important areas.
-- Ushering in a new phase of China's opening to the outside world and ensuring its high standard performance.
-- Making domestic demand the main engine driving growth.
-- Advancing agricultural modernization and rural reform and development.
-- Carrying out a new type of people-centered urbanization.
-- Using innovation to support and lead economic structural improvement and upgrading.
-- Accelerating the development of education, health, culture and other social programs.
-- Making coordinated efforts to ensure and improve people's wellbeing.
-- Building China into a beautiful homeland with a sound ecological environment.
What to do in 2014
-- The central government will cancel or delegate to lower-level governments another 200 administrative approvals at least.
-- The institutional reform of provincial, municipal and county governments will be finished this year and public institution reform continues.
-- Governments at all levels will be asked to publish their budgets and final accounts.
-- The trial of replacing business tax with VAT will be extended to railway, post and telecom services.
-- The central government will grant financial institutions more power to set their interest rates.
-- The government will promote the healthy development of Internet finance.
-- The government will allow non-state capital to take part in some projects in areas such as banking, oil, electricity, railway, telecommunications, resources development and public utilities.
-- The government pledges to protect property rights of both public and private sectors.
-- Total imports and exports are expected to grow at around 7.5 percent this year.
-- China will continue to negotiate investment agreements with the United States and the European Union, and speed up free trade area talks with the Republic of Korea, Australia and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
-- China will speed up 4G mobile network programs, build 100M fiber optic networks in cities and extend broadband connectivity to villages.
-- The central budget will invest 457.6 billion yuan mainly in government-subsidized housing, agriculture, major water conservancy projects, railway projects in the central and western regions, energy conservation, environmental protection and social programs.
-- More than 70 billion yuan in the central budget will go to major projects to divert water, protect water sources, harness rivers and lakes, and develop efficient water-saving irrigation.
-- The country will reduce outdated production capacity of 27 million metric tons of steel, 42 million metric tons of cement and 35 million standard containers of plate glass.
-- The number of rural students from poor areas enrolled in elite colleges and universities will increase by more than 10 percent.
-- The government will raise its subsidy for basic medical insurance for rural and unemployed urban residents to 320 yuan per person.
-- China will begin to build more than 7 million units of government-subsidized housing, 4.7 million of which will be in rundown urban areas. By the end of this year, 4.8 million units should be completed.
-- Air pollution control will focus on mega cities and regions troubled by smog.
-- This year, the government will shut down 50,000 small coal-fueled furnaces, as well as install desulphurization facilities in thermal power plants with the capacity of 15 million kw, denitrification facilities in plants with 130 million kw of production capacity, and dust control device on those with the 180-million-kw capacity. Six million old vehicles will be banned from the road.
-- Energy intensity will be cut by more than 3.9 percent. The emission of sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand will drop by 2 percent.
Progress in past year
-- China's GDP reached 56.9 trillion yuan in 2013, an increase of 7.7 percent over the previous year.
-- The per capita disposable income of urban residents rose by 7 percent, and the per capita net income of rural residents rose by 9.3 percent.
-- Government revenue increased by 10.1 percent.
-- The service sector contributed to 46.1 percent of GDP, surpassing the industry for the first time.
-- Government reform progressed smoothly as the central government abolished or delegated 416 administrative approvals.
-- Energy intensity was cut by 3.7 percent.
-- Emission of sulfur dioxide decreased by 3.5 percent.
-- Chemical oxygen demand, a key index for water quality, fell by 2.9 percent.
-- The country began to build 6.6 million units of government-subsidized housing, and 5.4 million were completed.
-- The central government spending on official overseas visits, official vehicles, and official hospitality was cut by 35 percent.
-- The provincial governments' cost of official hospitality decreased by 26 percent.
