III. Major Tasks for Economic and Social Development in 2015

This year we will carry out work on the following eight areas:

1. Promoting domestic demand to give a stronger impetus to economic growth

We will rev up new engines for driving economic development, promote the fundamental role of consumer spending and the key role of investment in stimulating growth, and make sure that fluctuations in the growth rate do not weaken the good momentum of China's economic development and that the quality of our growth increases with the size of our economy.

1) We will promote consumer spending and upgrade its structure through multi-point support. Total retail sales of consumer goods are expected to increase by 13% in 2015.

First, we will promote increases in personal income through various channels. We will issue and implement supporting measures for deepening reform of the income distribution system. Basic pension benefits for enterprise retirees will be raised by another 10%. We will reform the old-age insurance system for employees of Party and government offices and public institutions, while at the same time improving their pay systems. We will utilize the mechanism for increasing social assistance and social security benefits in line with rises in consumer prices to ensure basic living conditions for those in need.

Second, we will accelerate our efforts to nurture new growth areas in consumer spending. We will vigorously promote consumer spending in areas such as elderly care, domestic services, health, information, tourism, recreation, green products, housing, education, culture, and sports, encourage non-government parties to establish and operate institutions that provide services such as elderly care, fitness services, health care, and medical care, and accelerate the pace of implementing the National Broadband Internet Agenda and projects to expand broadband technology in townships and villages.

Third, we will improve the environment for consumer spending. We will speed up the establishment of a national unified system of codes for rating credit and a platform for sharing and communicating information on credit, and make concerted efforts to increase credit-related punishment. We will establish sound systems for monitoring and regulating the quality of products, for tracking product production details, and for recalling products, and intensify monitoring and regulation over the quality and safety of on-line goods. We will improve the system for food and drug oversight and our capacity for carrying out oversight, and resolutely crack down on the manufacture and sale of counterfeit and shoddy goods. We will conduct special inspections to monitor charges concerning education, medical care, and tourism, give full play to the role of the 12358 hotline and website in handling price-related complaints and managing information on pricing, and investigate and deal with cases of monopolistic pricing and practices of price fraud in accordance with the law.

2) We will work hard to sustain steady growth in investment. Total fixed-asset investment is projected to increase by 15% in 2015.

First, we will expand effective investment by adopting a full range of measures. We will coordinate all kinds of government investment and encourage and guide nongovernmental investment to make sure that major projects as specified in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan are completed and a number of new important projects are launched. These new projects include major transportation projects to build railways and highways in the central and western regions and develop inland waterways; major projects involving information, electricity, oil, and gas networks; clean energy projects and projects to ensure supplies of oil, gas, and mineral resources; agricultural projects to improve water conservancy and develop high-yield cropland; projects related to scientific and technological innovation and structural upgrading; projects concerning people's wellbeing, such as those to rebuild run-down areas, renovate dilapidated houses, and build urban pipeline networks; and projects aimed at energy conservation, environmental protection, and ecological improvement. With the focus on shoring up our weak spots, adjusting the economic structure, and increasing the supply of public goods and services, these projects are of overall, fundamental, and strategic importance to China's development, and will generate both short-term and long-term benefits.

Second, we will make innovations in mechanisms to stimulate nongovernmental investment. We will improve the role of treasury funds in supporting investment. For industries in competitive areas, we will change our way of providing support from making direct investments in specific projects to establishing investment funds in order to attract nongovernmental investment. We will actively encourage nongovernmental capital to initiate and set up industrial investment funds and equity funds. We will be more creative in using government investment, encouraging nongovernmental investment into major projects by subsidizing investment, injecting capital, and other measures.

Third, we will give full play to the leading role of budgetary investment. Appropriation for investment in the central government budget this year is planned to be 477.6 billion yuan. More of this investment will be directed toward agriculture, water conservancy, railways in the central and western regions, government-subsidized housing, major infrastructure, ecological improvement, people's wellbeing, and old revolutionary base areas, ethnic minority areas, border areas, and poor areas. We will reduce central government subsidies toward extensive local endeavors consisting of large numbers of minor projects, and make no more investment to general projects in competitive areas. Meanwhile, we will strengthen supervision and management of government funds.

2. Accelerating economic structural reform

We will strive to refine and implement existing reform plans and increase coordination and cooperation during their implementation in order to ensure that all reform measures are put into effect. We will correctly balance the relationship between the government and the market, move faster to establish a sound, unified, and open nationwide market system that ensures orderly competition, put forward more reform measures to invigorate the market, and turn the new benefits of reform into a new driving force for development.

1) We will fully advance the law-based exercise of administrative power.

We will press ahead with formulating and improving laws and regulations regarding plans for development, investment management, land management, energy and mineral resources, economic security, and other aspects, thus promptly consolidating our achievements in reform through the means of legislation. We will improve the mechanism for soliciting opinions from the public, conducting expert evaluations, risk assessments, and legality reviews, and carrying out collective discussions before making major policy decisions. We will establish a system of baselines for administrative discretionary powers regarding the review and approval of items and the imposing of administrative penalties. We will work hard to promote transparency in government operations. We will strengthen constraints on and oversight over the exercise of power.

2) We will deepen reform of government review and approval.

We will cancel or delegate to lower-level governments the process of government review and approval for an additional number of items and fully sort out the items requiring non-administrative review and approval. We will greatly streamline preliminary review and approval procedures, review and regulate intermediary services, and deepen reform of the business system. Stronger oversight will be exercised over items and projects during and after handling. We will draw up a negative list for market access, and ensure provincial-level governments release their lists of powers and responsibilities. We will put more emphasis on cooperation between the central and local authorities and coordination between relevant departments when carrying out our reform measures.

3) We will press ahead with the reforms of SOEs and the development of the non-public sector.

We will formulate guidelines on deepening reform of SOEs and carry out the reform by their type. We will move faster to relieve enterprises of their obligation to operate social programs and solve their longstanding problems in this regard. We will reform and improve the incentive and restraint mechanisms for SOE executives. We will develop mixed-ownership structures within SOEs in an orderly fashion, and encourage and set rules for non-state capital in holding shares of the investment projects of SOEs. We will continue to tighten oversight over state assets with the focus on state capital, and accelerate trials of forming corporations to invest and manage state capital. We will deepen structural reforms of electricity, petroleum, and natural gas industries. We will continue to optimize the institutional environment for developing the non-public sector, and further open up market access to encourage and guide more nongovernmental capital into areas such as basic industries, municipal public utilities, social programs, and financial services in order to give expression to the vitality and creativity of the non-public sector.

4) We will press ahead with reform of the fiscal and tax systems.

Except for those dealing with classified matters, we will make public the budgets and final accounts of all central and local departments. We will reform the system of transfer payments from the central government to local governments. We will review and standardize preferential policies such as preferential tax policies. We will levy price-based resource tax on more resource products, speed up legislation to introduce environmental protection tax, and push forward revisions to the Law on Tax Collection and Administration. We will deepen reform of the system of compensation for the exploitation of national mineral resources. We will strengthen local government debt management.

5) We will ensure better financial services for the real economy.

We will improve the system of multilevel capital markets and vigorously develop inclusive finance. We will step up efforts to develop small and medium-sized financial institutions committed to serving small and micro businesses as well as agriculture, rural areas, and farmers; energetically push forward the establishment of private banks; deepen reform of rural credit cooperatives; and advance the reform of government-sponsored development financial institutions and policy-backed financial institutions. We will establish the deposit insurance system. We will carry out the reform of stock issuance registration, launch trials of equity-based crowd-funding, and increase the proportion of direct financing. We will explore how to set up outbound RMB cooperative funds. We will encourage Internet banking to develop in an innovative and standardized way. We will research and roll out new types of insurance such as major disaster insurance and credit insurance, and support agricultural insurance in favoring various new agricultural entities.

6) We will deepen reform of the investment and financing system.

We will vigorously promote reform of the project review and approval system; build an online platform for reviewing, approving, and monitoring investment projects, ensuring that by the end of 2015, project review and approval procedures can be handled online nationwide; and establish a mechanism for coordinating oversight over investment projects. We will improve the relevant measures and detailed rules for their implementation for making innovations in the mechanisms for investment and financing in key areas and encouraging nongovernmental investment; further open up market access for nongovernmental capital; formulate measures for managing the franchising of infrastructure and public utilities; and actively promote application of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. We will issue the Regulations on Government Investment.

7) We will accelerate price reform.

We will revise the government pricing catalogue; stop setting prices for most medicines; lift the control of purchasing prices for tobacco leaves, a portion of rail fares and freight rates, rates and fees for some postal services, and charges for professional services; and delegate to lower levels of government the power to set prices for some basic public services. We will extend to more areas the trial price reform of electricity transmission and distribution. For non-residential consumption of natural gas, we will unify the price of gas consumption within 2014 levels with the price of gas consumption exceeding 2014 levels, and gradually lift control of the price for non-residential gas consumption. We will refine environmental protection price policies. We will implement tiered pricing for electricity, water, and natural gas used for household purposes throughout the country. We will make guidelines on reviewing and canceling all kinds of regulations and practices impeding the national unified market and fair competition, and work hard to get rid of various types of market segmentation and regional barriers.

8) We will steadily move ahead with reforms of the rural and land system.

We will prudently carry out trial reforms concerning rural land requisition, the marketization of rural collective land designated for business-related construction, the system of land used for rural housing, and the rural collective property rights system. We will launch trials of allowing rural land-use rights to be used as collateral to borrow money, guide farmers in becoming shareholders of cooperatives and leading enterprises by contributing their land-use rights, and develop appropriately scaled, diversified farm operations. We will improve the system of unified registration of immovable property, carry out the trial of determining and registering water rights, and advance price reform of water used for agricultural purposes. We will fully deepen the comprehensive reform of supply and marketing cooperatives, and move faster to reform state forestry farms and areas, state farms built on reclaimed land, and the seed industry.

In addition, we also need to move ahead with institutional reforms in education, science, technology, culture, medical and health care, social management, and ecological progress.

3. Thoroughly implementing the strategy of opening up

We will act more quickly to make Chinese businesses more competitive in the international market, allow exports to effectively drive economic growth, and expand the scope and depth of opening up.

1) We will give impetus to the steady growth in foreign trade.

We will improve the system for joint payment of export rebates by the central and local governments. We will help cultivate brand names for export and overseas marketing networks. We will improve cross-border e-commerce, market purchases, integrated services for foreign trade, and other new trade models. We will give preferential credit to buyers of Chinese exports in order to stimulate the export of Chinese equipment, technology, and standards. We will improve policies that promote the trade in services, expand the export of services, and increase support for efforts to undertake services outsourced by other countries. We will adopt a more proactive import policy, expanding the import of advanced technology, key equipment, and important parts and components.

2) We will raise the utilization of foreign capital to a new level.

We will revise the Catalogue for the Guidance of Industries for Foreign Investment. We will encourage other parts of the country to make use of the experience gained in the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, and move steadily forward with the building of pilot free trade zones in Guangdong, Tianjin, and Fujian. We will focus on opening the service sector and the general manufacturing sector wider to the outside world, carrying out trials to open up our financial sector, and revamping the model of managing foreign debt. We will explore the management model of pre-establishment national treatment (PENT) plus a negative list, and improve the system for security reviews of foreign investments. In 2015, foreign direct investment in China's non-financial sectors is projected to reach US$120 billion, which is similar to last year.

3) We will raise the efficiency and quality of China's outward investment.

We will move faster to build a system for providing financial services to outward investment, expand the channel for using foreign exchange reserves, and provide better financial services, information services, legal services, and consulate protection for Chinese enterprises investing overseas. With the focus on the construction of key and iconic projects, we will continue to encourage the building of overseas railways, ports, highways, and nuclear power projects; deepen cooperation on energy and resources with other countries; expand cooperation on equipment manufacturing, emerging industries, ecological conservation, and environmental protection; and increase the pace of China's production capacity and equipment in "going global" . In 2015, China's non-financial outward direct investment is estimated to come to US$113 billion, which is an increase of about 10%.

4) We will increase multilateral, bilateral, and regional economic cooperation.

We will put into practice the strategy of developing the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor. We will speed up infrastructure connectivity with our neighbors. We will upgrade the China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone, strive to complete the talks on regional comprehensive economic partnership agreements, build the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, and carry on negotiations of investment agreements with the United States and the European Union.

4. Accelerating the transformation of agricultural development

In our efforts to develop agriculture, four bottlenecks have already emerged that we will have to face within the near future: the prices of domestic agricultural products already far exceed international prices, the costs associated with agriculture production are ever increasing, direct subsidies to agriculture which fall into the WTO's "amber box" are close to the limit that China agreed to when it joined the WTO, and the impact of agriculture on resources and the environment has set off a red warning light. We must accelerate the transformation of agricultural development, and embark on a path of modern agricultural development which ensures high yield and safe agricultural produce, conserves resources, and is environmentally friendly. In 2015, we will keep total grain output stable at 550 million metric tons or above.

1) We will innovate and improve policies that support agriculture.

We will ensure that the proportion of the central government's budgetary investments to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers is at least kept at the same level as last year, increase efforts to carry out integrated planning for these funds, and make their use more efficient. We will improve mechanisms that provide compensation for cropland protection and subsidize major grain growing areas, and conduct trials of granting subsidies to large-scale grain growers, family farms, and other emerging agribusinesses. We will continue to implement the minimum purchase price policy on rice and wheat, move ahead with the pilot reform of guaranteed base prices for cotton and soybeans, and improve the temporary purchase and stockpiling policy on major agricultural products and the management of their import and export. We will establish a sound system by which provincial governors are accountable for their provinces' food security. We will make local governments strengthen their grain reserves systems.

2) We will strengthen agricultural and rural infrastructure development.

We will carry out work to demarcate permanent basic farmland throughout the country. We will accelerate implementation of the national master plan for building high-grade farmland and the plan for increasing China's grain production capacity by 50 million metric tons. We will construct a number of new major projects to divert water, protect key water sources, and harness rivers and lakes. We will more quickly build auxiliary facilities and update water-saving devices in medium- to large-scale irrigation areas, and advance the construction of small-scale irrigation infrastructure and water conservancy infrastructure. We will comprehensively implement the project to purchase and stockpile grain to ensure its supply and security, and support the building of grain silos with capacities of 50 million metric tons. We will intensify efforts to address serious problems in the agricultural environment, and comprehensively improve the rural living environment, to build a more beautiful and livable countryside. Safe drinking water will be made available to another 60 million rural residents. All-out efforts will be made to deliver electricity to all households without power supply. We will make great efforts to build rural roads in the western region and in contiguous poor areas. We will rebuild run-down houses for 3.66 million rural households, and make coordinated efforts to renovate rural houses to make them more earthquake-resistant.

3) We will accelerate agricultural structural adjustment.

We will improve the industrial organization of agriculture and the mechanisms for balancing the interests of farmers and enterprises, and integrate the development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in rural areas. We will work harder to promote innovation in agricultural science and technology and spread the use of new agricultural techniques, machinery, and tools. We will coordinate the construction of grain, cotton, oilseed, sugar crop, and vegetable production centers, and encourage standardized, large-scale, and intensive livestock, poultry, and aquaculture farming. We will encourage the local conversion and processing of grain in major grain-producing areas. We will support the construction of national seed cultivation and production centers. We will also strengthen the fishery administration.