The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council jointly held the Central Economic Work Conference on December 5-7, 2006 in Beijing.

President Hu Jintao, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made an important speech at the conference. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of the current domestic economic situation and international economic environment, President Hu put forward the guidelines and overall requirements for the economic work in 2007 and also elaborated on the principles and major tasks to be fulfilled for the success of the economic work. Premier Wen Jiabao made detailed arrangements for the goals, tasks and relevant big issues for the economic work in 2007.

The conference said that in 2006–the first year of the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-10), China made new achievements in economic, political, cultural and social fields and in Party construction by holding high the great banner of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of the "Three Represents," fully putting into practice the scientific outlook on development and carefully implementing the 11th Five-Year Plan. China's defense and military modernization kept going on. Considering the new situations, new problems and striking contradictions in the process of China's economic and social development, the country continued to strengthen and improve macro control and push forward reform and opening up, which has contributed to improved conditions and environment for further development and better development trend. Forging ahead along the course set under macro-control policies, China maintained a rapid economic development and kept its consumer prices at a low level.

The year of 2006 witnessed great progress in China's economic development, which is a good start for the 11th Five-Year Plan period. The national economic development kept a stable and fast pace while the work on building a socialist new countryside was going forward in a solid way.

The country sped up the pace of industrial restructuring and made more efforts to encourage innovation in all walks of life. With new progress achieved in the reforms in some major and key areas, China also further opened itself to the outside world. In general, through joint efforts by the whole Party and people of all ethnic groups, China's economic strength and comprehensive national strength have been further enhanced, with a rising international influence and improved living conditions for the people. All the achievements are evidences for progress in the understanding and implementation of the scientific outlook on development. In addition, China has accelerated development of social undertakings, such as education, health care and social welfare, remarkably improving the people's living standard.

Despite the achievements, the conference stressed it is of vital importance to be aware of the striking conflictions and problems in the process of economic and social development, especially major issues that may affect the overall development of the country.

People must develop a full understanding of system and mechanism-related conflicts and of new situations and problems in the process of development, must be mindful of potential risks and try to do the work well. Based on previous years' experience and taking into consideration of the new economic and social situations, there have been some new consensuses on implementing the scientific outlook on development: People must have an in-depth understanding that a sound and rapid development is the essential requirement of the scientific outlook on development, must always put the issues concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers at a prominent position of the overall economic development, must spare no effort to promote the overall balance of the economy while optimizing its structure, must regard the balance of international payments as an important objective in maintaining macro economic stability, must keep strengthening the incentive and restrictive mechanisms in enterprises and must stick to promoting the coordinated economic and social development. In a word, efforts must be doubled to deepen the understanding of the scientific outlook on development, enrich its connotation, improve the policies for its implementation and create a new situation for the scientific development.

The conference said that the overall international economic environment has offered excellent opportunities and also posed severe challenges to China's development but on the whole opportunities surpass challenges. It called on the Chinese people to concentrate on the country's construction and development by seizing the opportune opportunities presented by economic globalization and international industrial restructuring and transfer, persisting in the policy of reform and opening up, carrying on with the mutually beneficial opening-up strategy, developing cooperative relationship with all countries and expanding economic and trade cooperation with the rest of the world.

The conference pointed out that 2007 is a crucial year for the implementation of the scientific outlook on development and for the building of a socialist harmonious society. Excellent economic work matters a lot to maintain a sound economic and social development momentum and for the impendent 17th CPC National Congress. The major requirements for the economic work in 2007 are as follows: Following the guidance of the Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of the °∞Three Represents,°± and thoroughly implementing the guidelines of the 16th CPC National Congress and spirits of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth plenums of the 16th CPC Central Committee, the whole country should make efforts to comprehensively implement the scientific outlook on development, accelerate the building of a socialist harmonious society, continuously strengthen and improve macro control and push forward economic restructuring and the transformation of economic growth mode. Efforts should also be made to promote energy conservation and environmental protection, to speed up reform and opening up and scientific and technological innovation, and to accelerate social development and improve people's living standard. The whole nation should focus on realizing a healthy and fast economic growth along a scientific development path so as to create a sound environment for the 17th CPC National Congress. This general requirement demands a thorough implementation of the scientific outlook on development in promoting economic and social development. Efforts should be made to coordinate the relationship among speed, quality and efficiency, among consumption, investment and export and among population, resources and environment to achieve the sound and rapid development in the real sense.

The eight major tasks for economic work in 2007:

First, to persistently strengthen and improve macro control to maintain and promote the sound economic development trend. It is of vital importance to keep the consistency and stability of China's macro economic policy, further put into practice macro control-related policies and measures and try to carry out preemptive and moderate adjustments in a suitable and timely manner in accordance with new changes in economic operation, so as to actively guide social expectations and ensure stable and rapid economic development. Efforts should be intensified to balance the relationship between investment and consumption and between internal and external demand, while devoting more energy to expand domestic consumption. The present work should focus on the rational control of investment growth and optimizing the investment structure. Persistent efforts should be made to encourage consumer spending, especially farmers' consumption to accelerate the adjustment of national income distribution and improve the income level and purchasing power of farmers and low-income residents in the urban areas. While maintaining a suitable growth of exports and the use of foreign capital, China is to actively expand imports and increase investment outside China. China will continue with its prudent fiscal and monetary policies, increase support to key and weak areas, apply various monetary policy tools to strengthen liquidity management, reasonably control credit availability and optimize the credit structure. Great attention should be paid to guide and effectively regulate the real estate market. Efforts should be made to coordinate the relationship among financial, monetary, industrial, land and social development policies. Economic, legal and necessary administrative means should be used to make macro control more reasonable and effective. Special efforts should be made to ensure the implementation of all kinds of policies, principles and tasks.

Second, to focus on the economic development in the rural areas in order to promote the building of a new socialist countryside. As an extremely important national strategic policy of the Party, issues concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers must be carefully dealt with. The work to promote and stabilize agriculture so as to increase farmers' income allows no relaxation. Persistent efforts should be made to coordinate the economic development in urban and rural areas, to encourage industry to support agriculture and cities to support the countryside, and to practice the principles of giving more, taking less and relaxing control to tangibly consolidate and strengthen the agricultural foundation. Work also needs to be done to develop the rural economy in an all-round way, to increase farmers' income and to gradually set up a mechanism for coordinated development of agricultural and industrial sectors. Especially, at a time of rapid economic growth and high financial revenue, the country should try to seize the opportunity to continuously consolidate, improve and strengthen all kinds of policies to support and benefit the farmers. Tangible inputs should be made to projects involving agriculture, rural areas and farmers so as to make the development of modern agriculture the driving force for the building of a new socialist countryside. Farmers' overall quality is to be enhanced so that they are going to play a more effective role as the major force in reviving the rural areas. The basic infrastructure construction in the rural areas should be strengthened while the development of the social welfare undertakings in the rural areas should be accelerated and various reforms in the rural areas be continued.

Third, to actively promote the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure by strengthening energy conservation and ecological protection. With an irrational economic structure and an extensive economic growth mode, and in the historical process of industrialization and upgrading of consumption structure, China is faced with serious conditions in terms of energy resource conservation and ecological protection and hard tasks in saving energy and reducing pollution. A consensus on concept must be reached to help all parties concerned to make up their mind and make great efforts to achieve tangible results. Effective measures should be taken to find any potential method to reach the goal of energy conservation and pollution reduction. To eliminate outdated production mode should continue to be an important method to adjust and optimize the industrial structure. To strengthen the government responsibility should be regarded as the key to realize the goal of saving energy and reducing pollution and discharge. The improvement of the market-based regulatory mechanism should be used as the basic means to achieve the energy-saving targets. The promotion of law-abiding governance should act as an important guarantee for the job. The supervision role of public opinion should be brought into full play. A healthy, energy-saving and environment-friendly consumption mode and sound social habits should be encouraged so that the whole society will involve themselves in the development of a energy-saving and environment-friendly society.

Fourth, to improve the country's capacity of innovation and to accelerate the development of an innovation-oriented country. International science and technology progress and China's modernization drive require us to speed up the development of an innovation-oriented country. The country must take a road of independent innovation with Chinese characteristics and try to make tangible efforts to keep up with other countries, and to keep improving local enterprises' innovative capacity in an open environment and their capability to integrate, digest and absorb imported technologies in accordance with the National Long- and Middle-term Program of Sci-Tech Development. Enterprises are to be granted a principal status in technological innovation and all kinds of mechanisms and policies are to be made more reasonable to speed up the implementation of major sci-tech programs. China has set up the goal of growing into an innovation-oriented country, so people need to be resolute to solve all kinds of problems and try to fulfill the historical mission of raising the capacity of independent innovation through careful, solid and hard work.

Fifth, to implement an overall strategy of regional development and promote a sound development of urbanization. Efforts should be made to develop and improve a nationwide unified market, to improve the mechanism for coordinating the development of different regions and to support the growth of local pillar industries. The eastern region should be encouraged to transfer their industries to the central and western regions. Efforts should be made to improve labor division and cooperation mechanism so as to realize optimal resource distribution in as many fields as possible. The state will increase its support to the construction of basic infrastructures and public services in less-developed regions. To accelerate the development of old base areas of the Communist-led forces in the first half of the 20th century, ethnic minority concentration areas and impoverished areas. To push forward the planning of key development zones so that they can serve as a scientific basis for coordinated regional development. Efforts should be made to carry on with the improvement of basic infrastructures and ecological environment in the western region, focusing on the development of science and technology, education, pillar industries and key areas. The grain production capability of China's northeastern area should be strengthened. Support will be given to the research and development of major equipment of general machines in the hope of making breakthrough in this regard. It is important to put into practice the polices for promoting the development of China's central region and to support the industrial transfer from China's eastern region and overseas to the central region. The country's relatively rich eastern area should take a lead in adopting the new mode of industrialization, continuously promote mechanism innovation, and accelerate the optimization and upgrading of economic structure and also the transformation of the economic growth mode. To step up urbanization should focus on enhancing the comprehensive development capacity of cities and ensuring an orderly transfer of rural population. Efforts should be made to set up and improve the low-rent housing supply system in urban areas, standardize the affordable housing system, continuously improve the housing conditions for low-income people in urban areas. The research and planning work on developing city clusters should be strengthened to guide the coordinated development of big as well as small and medium-sized cities.

Sixth, to continue the reform of systems and accelerate the formation of the mechanism that helps to put into practice the scientific outlook on development. To set up such a mechanism is the main task in the furtherance of reform in the years to come. The country should persist in the socialist market economy reform direction and make more efforts in the reform process to accelerate economic and social development and to take a road of scientific development. System and mechanism bottlenecks that are responsible for extensive economic growth mode, instable macro-economic operation and inharmonious factors are to be steadily tackled through reforms in key areas and key links. The reform of state-owned enterprises will concentrate on the improvement of corporate competitiveness and governance. The reform of administrative governance, as well as investment, financial and taxation systems, will focus on the transformation of government functions. The reform of the financial system will focus on the improvement of the legal person management structure and the optimization of the financial structure. The reform in the social area targets the establishment of a fair social security system. In the process of reform, the priority should be given to balancing the relationship among reform, development and stability so as to continuously enhance the rationality of reform-related decisions and the coordination among reform measures. It is important to press ahead with mature reform measures and properly deal with changes in interest sharing resulting from the reform so as to ensure the reform goes on smoothly.

Seventh, to persist in the mutually beneficial and win-win strategy of opening up and open the country wider to the outside world. With the end of transition period after China's WTO accession, the country is faced with new changes in its practice of opening up. Efforts should be made to urgently adjust and improve the export-oriented economic development mode on the basis of consolidating and expanding existing achievements, so as to improve the country's level in foreign trade development and foreign capital use, to cope with new problems resulting from the expansion of the service sector, to strengthen the country's capability of participating in the economic globalization and safeguarding the national economic security, and to push China's foreign trade-related work to a new level. Focusing on the optimization of the composition of exported commodities, the country should speed up its efforts in transforming the foreign trade growth mode. There is an urgent need to improve the quality of foreign capital use by importing advanced technologies, managerial experience and overseas talents. The "going-out" strategy should be continued.

Eighth, to put people first and continuously promote social harmony. Tangible work should be done to increase employment and income redistribution. Great importance should be attached to the employment of members from "zero employment families." More employment guidance and services should be offered to college graduates. The mechanism of wage negotiation should be improved to effectively safeguard labors' legitimate rights. Efforts should be intensified to increase the income of people earning less. Polices should be made more rational so as to steadily increase the size of the middle-income group. To strengthen tax collection and administration to achieve effective adjustment of the distribution of high-income earners and supervision on the income distribution in monopoly industries should be strengthened. It is of vital importance to accelerate the construction of a social security network to make the urban social insurance system cover more people. Endowment insurance, medical insurance and industrial injury insurance should be expanded to enterprises of various types of ownership. The government should continue to improve the security system for urban low-income families. The supervision on and administration of social security funds should be strengthened. The efforts to develop the country's education, health care and culture should be accelerated. To offer people more fair opportunities in education and to strengthen quality-oriented education should be put on the top of the government's agenda. Efforts should be made to help the rural areas, the central and western regions, and the poor, border and ethnic minority concentration areas enjoy more educational resources. The policies on scholarship, fellowship and student loans should be carefully implemented, so that children from poor families can enjoy equal education opportunities. Public health care should always stick to the nature of public welfare and a good medical care system that covers residents in rural and urban areas should be set up as soon as possible. While the public health and medical service system is improved, the reform scheme on the health care system should be accelerated. Efforts should be made to accelerate the development of the country's cultural undertaking and culture industry and offer various affordable cultural services so as to better meet people's demand in terms of the cultural life. Tough actions should be taken to crack down on various crimes to ensure social stability. To improve the work safety guarantee mechanism and curb the trend of frequent occurrence of serious accidents should be given top priority, so as to ensure the security of people's life and their property.

(China.org.cn)