China stressed coordinated and sustainable economic and social
development in setting main regulatory targets, and major tasks for
economic and social development in 2004, the country's top
legislature was told Saturday.
Ma Kai, minister in charge of the State Development and Reform
Commission, made the remarks in his report to the legislature on
the implementation of the 2003 Plan for National Economic and
Social Development and on the 2004 Draft Plan for National Economic
and Social Development.
In the year 2004, he said, "We must continue to put the people
first and articulate and bring to fruition a conception of
all-round, balanced and sustainable development."
"In line with the need to balance urban and rural development,
balance development among regions, balance economic and social
development, balance development of man and nature, and balance
domestic development and opening wider to the outside world, we
must shift the focus of our economic work onto restructuring the
economy, changing the mode of economic growth, and improving its
quality and efficiency."
He said China must nurture, guide and make good use of
everyone's initiative in accelerating development so as to bring
about sustained, rapid, balanced and sound development of the
national economy and all-round social progress.
"Our main macro-control targets for 2004 are as follows:
Economic growth rate around 7 percent. Nine million new jobs for
urban residents and registered urban unemployment rate confined to
4.7 percent. Rise in the consumer price index of about 3 percent.
Increase in total import and export volume of 8 percent.
Targets for China's economic and social development in 2004:
-- Economic growth rate: around 7 percent;
-- New jobs for 9 million urban residents;
-- Urban registered unemployment rate: 4.7 percent;
-- CPI growth rate: around 3 percent;
-- Foreign trade growth rate: 8 percent;
-- Growth of farmers' per-capita net income: 5 percent;
-- Grain output: 455 billion kilograms;
-- Issue of long-term treasury bonds: 110 billion yuan;
-- Total budgetary revenue: 2.357 trillion yuan;
-- Total budgetary expenditure: 2.6768 trillion yuan;
-- Central budget deficit: 319.8 billion yuan;
-- Natural population growth rate: within 7 per thousand;
and
-- College enrollment: 4 million undergraduates, 330,000
postgraduate students
China to raise farmers' income, improve food
security
China plans to raise farmers' income and improve grain
production capacity this year through a number of initiatives to
improve its food security, Ma Kai said.
China will continue carrying out strategic restructuring of
agriculture and the rural economy and implementing a plan to
arrange where crops are grown, so as to use cropland to the best
geographical advantage, said the minister.
"We will strengthen the emergency animal epidemic prevention
system, improve the system of quality standards and the system for
inspecting and testing farm products, and implement the Action Plan
for Pollution-Free Food."
The minister said China will promote the adjustment and
transformation of township and village enterprises, selectively
develop small towns, and strengthen intra-county
economies.
Vocational training will be offered to rural laborers, and
better information will be provided to guide the movement of
surplus rural labor in an orderly way, he said.
"The problem of withholding or delaying payment of the wages of
migrant rural workers in cities must be solved, and a mechanism to
ensure the timely payment of such wages will be established and
improved."
He said that pay for farmers will be included in the budgets for
government-financed rural construction projects to ensure they are
properly paid.
China will deepen the reform of rural taxes and administrative
charges, reduce the rates for agricultural taxes and eliminate
taxes on all special agricultural products except tobacco to
effectively ease the burden on farmers, he said.
The government will continue to give people work in place of
relief subsidies as part of the effort to improve the mechanism for
alleviating rural poverty through development, said the
minister.
He added that emergency disaster relief work must be done well,
promising proper arrangements will be made for the work and daily
lives of needy rural households.
He went on to say the acreage sown to grain must be expanded,
and the country will make efforts to increase the yield per unit
area and ensure that grain output totals 455 billion kilograms this
year.
China will practice the most stringent possible system for
protecting farmland, and will reform the way land is expropriated
and the mechanism of compensating for its expropriation, he
said.
"The transformation of farmland to non-agricultural purposes
will be planned and managed strictly".
China will launch a project to industrialize production of
high-quality grains, and establish a group of state production
centers concentrated in major grain producing areas to produce
high-quality and special grain crops, said the minister.
He said investment will be increased to develop improved crop
strains, promote wider application of advanced agricultural
techniques, prevent and control plant diseases and pests, improve
irrigated areas, develop dry farming and water-saving irrigation,
turn hillsides into terraced fields and build silt trappers.
"Improvement of low- and medium-yield farmland will be
accelerated," he said.
Moreover, Ma said, major grain consumption areas will also be
obligated to protect their primary farmland to maintain necessary
grain production capacity and ensure adequate local grain
reserves.
China to beef up human resources development in
2004
China will beef up human resources development this year through
implementing the strategy of relying on talented personnel to
strengthen the country, Ma said.
"The top priority for our work in education will continue to be
rural education. We will lose no time in improving the mechanism
for ensuring adequate funding for rural education to make it more
regular and institutionalized."
He acknowledged that China will intensify its efforts to make
nine-year compulsory education basically universal and to basically
eliminate illiteracy among young and middle-aged people in the
western region, he said.
"We will continue the project to renovate dangerous primary and
secondary school buildings in rural areas and the national program
to make compulsory education universally available in
poverty-stricken areas."
Ma went on to say that China will work harder to develop
high-quality universities and key disciplines and improve the
quality of higher education, increase the number of key senior
secondary schools and vigorously develop vocational education and
continuing education.
Plans call for enrolling of 4 million undergraduate
students and 330,000 graduate students in regular institutions of
higher learning in 2004, the minister said.
China to create more jobs, expand consumer
spending
China will in 2004 implement a proactive employment policy, and
continue to expand consumer spending and improve people's lives, Ma
Kai said.
"We will further implement existing measures such as fiscal and
credit support and tax and fee cuts and exemptions and do
everything possible to create more jobs."
The minister said China will give full play to the role of
labor-intensive industries, small and medium-sized enterprises and
non-public sectors of the economy in expanding employment.
China will vigorously develop the tertiary industry and expand
avenues for employment in traditional service industries such as
business, food and beverage service and transportation.
He promised to create more jobs in the areas of public health,
urban environmental protection, medical care, as well as community
and domestic services, and expand employment in tourism, education,
training, culture, sports and information services.
China will promote diverse types of employment and encourage
people to be flexible in taking a job or become self-employed. he
added.
He noted that China will improve the employment service system,
strengthen the reemployment assistance system and provide better
job training, job introduction and employment guidance services to
laid-off workers and the unemployed, and work harder at job
placement for college graduates and ex-servicemen.
"We will improve the consumer environment, expand consumer
spending and gradually increase the proportion of consumption in
our GDP," he said.
He said China will improve the social assistance system, provide
subsistence allowances to the urban poor and help needy urban
families solve their practical problems, and increase the supply of
low- and moderate-price commercial housing, stimulate the secondary
housing market and expand consumer spending on housing.
China will steadily increase consumer spending on private cars
and communications, and will encourage people to spend more on
travel, sports, fitness and culture.
The minister said China will accelerate the development of the
credit system and develop consumer credit, combine efforts to
expand consumption with those to strengthen regulation of income
distribution, and raise the minimum wage appropriately to increase
the incomes of urban residents, especially low- and middle-income
people.
China needs to strengthen supervision over income distribution
in monopoly industries and intensify collection and management of
individual income tax to regulate excessively high incomes, said
the minister.
He said the central government will focus on increasing funding
to solve the problems facing agriculture, rural areas and farmers
and to support employment work, social security, education,
science, culture and health. We must ensure that government
employees' salaries and government retirees' pensions are paid on
time and in full, and that state organs receive the funding
necessary for their normal operations.
Ma noted that China will continue to have zero growth in our
general expenditures as total national revenue in the budget for
2004 stands at 2.357 trillion yuan, and total expenditures are
2.6768 trillion yuan.
That keeps the central government budget deficit within 319.8
billion yuan, said the minister.
China to use treasury bonds in balancing
development
China will adjust the orientation of investment using treasury
bonds to make full use of their role in promoting restructuring and
balancing development, Ma said.
"Premier Wen Jiabao pointed out in his Government Work Report
yesterday that we would issue 110 billion yuan worth of long-term
construction treasury bonds this year. We must manage and use them
well in line with the resolutions of this session."
This year, he said, the focus of these funds will be shifted
from the previous emphasis on expanding domestic demand and
stimulating economic growth to promoting restructuring and
balancing economic and social development.
They will be mainly used for the following:
-- To increase support for developing agriculture and rural
areas by building more small and medium-sized infrastructure
projects such as water-efficient irrigation facilities, potable
water supplies, roads, methane production facilities, hydroelectric
plants and pasture enclosure projects, so as to promote balanced
urban and rural development, he said.
-- To place greater emphasis on developing social undertakings
by investing more in infrastructure projects for public health and
medical care, elementary education, primary-level governments,
people's courts and public security, procuratorial and judicial
organs, so as to promote balanced economic and social
development;
-- To support development of the western region and adjustment
and transformation of northeast China and other old industrial
bases, so as to promote balanced regional development and;
-- To continue to improve ecological conservation and
environmental protection, so as to promote balanced development
between man and nature; and to build more key infrastructure
projects, so as to create the conditions necessary for long-term,
stable economic and social development.
Main development targets attained
At the beginning of his report, Ma said that China successfully
attained main targets for economic and social development in 2003
with rapid economic growth.
The economy grew rapidly with its efficiency improved
significantly, and China's GDP hit 11.6694 trillion yuan in 2003, a
9.1 percent increase over the previous year, said the minister.
Per capita gross domestic product rose to 9,030 yuan, exceeding
the important benchmark of US$1,000 for the first time when
calculated at the present exchange rate, he said.
The growth of domestic demand was accelerated as investment in
fixed assets for the whole country was 5.5118 trillion yuan, a
year-on-year rise of 26.7 percent, and that retail sales of
consumer goods totaled 4.5842 trillion yuan, up 9.1 percent, he
acknowledged. Consumer prices rose by 1.2 percent.
Economic efficiency improved in step with economic growth, and
government revenue for the entire country was 2.17 trillion yuan, a
rise of 14.7 percent more than the previous year, said Ma.
Economic efficiency in the industrial sector reached a record
high. Total profits of state-owned and large non-state owned
industrial enterprises were 815.2 billion yuan, an increase of 42.7
percent, 22 percentage points greater than the previous year.
State-owned enterprises and enterprises with the controlling
stake held by the state generated 378.4 billion yuan in profits, an
increase of 45.2 percent. Of the industrial products made last
year, 98.1 percent were sold.
The minister said a number of projects of great importance for
long-term economic and social development were completed and put
into operation.
In 2003, he said, water was successfully stored in the Three
Gorges Reservoir, and permanent ship locks on the Three Gorges
Project were opened to navigation, and the project's first set of
generators began producing power.
Construction was started on the eastern and central routes of
the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. An additional 46,000
kilometers of highways and 1,164 kilometers of newly completed
railway lines were opened to traffic. The power industry developed
more quickly.
The country produced 1.9 trillion KWH of electricity in 2003,
15.5 percent more than in 2002, and the number of telephone
subscribers reached 532 million, a year-on-year increase of 112
million, the minister said.
The minister acknowledged that new strides were made in
developing the western region, and implementation of the strategy
for reinvigorating northeast China and other old industrial bases
began.
"Ecological conservation and environmental protection work in
the western region was further intensified. Some 3.37 million
hectares of farmland were returned to forests; 3.77 million
hectares of barren hills and wasteland were afforested; and 6.66
million hectares of seriously degraded grassland were
improved."
Greater efforts were put into infrastructure development, noted
Ma. An additional 317 kilometers of track was laid on the
Qinghai-Tibet railway line. The eastern section of the West-to-East
Natural Gas Piping Project was completed, allowing natural gas to
be delivered to east China.
An additional power transmission capacity of over 8 million KW
was installed as part of the West-to-East Electricity Transmission
Project, said the minister. Another 4,200 kilometers of highways
connecting county seats were built or upgraded.
Progress in social undertakings
China recorded all-round development in science, technology,
education and all other social undertakings as well as continued
progress in ecological conservation and environmental protection,
Ma said.
Basic and hi-tech research was intensified and continued
progress was made in the state innovation system, said the
minister, who singled out the successful launching of the
Shenzhou-V spacecraft and its safe return to the earth last October
as another milestone in China's hi-tech development.
Fresh progress was made in compulsory education. Regular
institutions of higher learning across the country enrolled 3.822
million students, 617,000 more than the previous year, the minister
said.
He said efforts to develop public health facilities were
intensified, and about 6 billion yuan from the sale of treasury
bonds was allocated to develop an anti-SARS infrastructure, disease
prevention and control networks at the provincial, prefectural and
county levels, and a public health emergency response system.
"Ecological conservation and environmental protection were
intensified, and economical and multipurpose utilization of natural
resources was promoted. Some 2.05 million hectares of forests were
developed to improve ecological conditions or serve as
shelterbelts."
Banning or temporarily suspending animal grazing allowed for 8.6
million hectares of grassland to be effectively protected and
rationally utilized, he said.
"Pollution control and treatment were accelerated in key river
valleys and regions, including the drainage basins of the Huaihe,
Haihe and Liaohe rivers, Taihu, Chaohu and Dianchi lakes, and the
Three Gorges Reservoir."
He went on to say that various reforms pressed ahead in an
orderly manner, and China continued opening wider to the outside
world. "Institutional restructuring of the State Council was
completed smoothly, and steady progress was made in institutional
restructuring of provincial-level governments."
Foreign trade grew rapidly, noted the minister. Imports and
exports totaled US$851.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 37.1
percent, and a total of US$53.5 billion in foreign direct
investment was actually utilized.
A total of 8.59 million more urban residents found jobs, and 4.4
million laid-off workers were re-employed in 2003, and both figures
exceeded the targets set for the year. The registered unemployment
rate was 4.3 percent in cities and towns at the end of 2003.
The urban population had a per capita disposable income of 8,472
yuan, an increase of 9 percent in real terms, and the rural
population had a per capita net income of 2,622 yuan, an increase
of 4.3 percent in real terms.
Living allowances for laid-off workers and old-age pensions for
retirees were basically paid on time and in full. Some 22.35
million urban residents received subsistence allowances, 1.7
million more than in 2002.
The government allocated special funds to help people in
disaster-afflicted areas resume production and improve their living
conditions, said the minister.
Difficulties, problems facing China
China is clearly aware that there are still many difficulties
and problems in economic and social development which cannot be
overlooked, Ma said.
"Some longstanding, deep-rooted problems have yet to be solved,
and there are still structural barriers holding back economic and
social development," he said.
Moreover, he added, there are new circumstances and problems
affecting the operation of the economy.
Farmers have difficulty increasing their incomes and grain
production has dropped considerably, as the increase in per capita
net income for the rural population in 2003 was 0.5 percentage
points lower than in 2002, he said.
The problem of indiscriminate expropriation of arable land is
serious, and grain output for 2003 decreased by 26.4 billion
kilograms year-on-year, said the minister.
The problem of unemployment remains serious as there were
about14 million laid-off workers and unemployed people in cities
and towns, and approximately 10 million new urban residents are
expected to enter the labor force this year, he said.
In addition, large numbers of surplus rural laborers still need
to shift to non-agricultural industries and urban areas.
He noted that there is a wide income gap among some members of
society, and in both urban and rural areas many low-income people
lead a fairly difficult life.
The minister said the country's economic structure is still
irrational, and too much of its economic growth is based on
extensive production, and the problems of haphazard investment and
low-level, redundant expansion are worsening in some industries and
localities, resulting in excess energy consumption, serious waste
of resources and environmental pollution.
He added that economic and social development remains imbalanced
in China as the public health service system is far from sound and
the situation that rural education remains weak as a whole requires
fundamental changes.
The order of the market economy, he noted, remains somewhat
chaotic.
"We urgently need to improve the social credit system. Major
industrial accidents occur frequently. We need to take a long-term
perspective rooted in the present and solve these problems through
reform and development," Ma said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2004)