Meeting discusses draft documents for upcoming session of top legislature

A key Party meeting held on Friday outlined China's priority tasks during the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), and called for efforts to ensure a head start in fully building a modern socialist country.

The meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, presided over by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, discussed the draft 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, as well as the draft Government Work Report.

The draft documents will be submitted for deliberation at the upcoming fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, which opens in Beijing next week.

Meeting participants said that the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan bears great significance in terms of expanding the country's achievements in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, as well as in eradicating poverty.

This period should focus on promoting high-quality development with supply-side structural reform as the main task and with reform and innovation as the fundamental driving force. And the fundamental goal is to meet people's ever-growing desire for a better life, they said.

To this end, they stressed efforts in accelerating the development of a modernized economy, the formation of a new development paradigm with the domestic market as the mainstay and domestic and international markets reinforcing each other, and the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance.

As meeting participants discussed the draft Government Work Report, they noted that China's economic and social development still faces difficulties and challenges given the COVID-19 pandemic and unstable factors in the international situation.

This year, the government will strive to spur domestic demand, strengthen strategic support for science and technology for economic development and expand high-standard opening-up to enable the country's economic growth to remain within a reasonable range, they said.

To achieve this year's goals and tasks for economic and social development, efforts should be made to maintain the continuity, stability and sustainability of China's macroeconomic policy, they said, noting that the pro-employment policies should continue to be enhanced.

Participants also stressed further reforms in key areas and efforts to promote the innovation-driven high-quality development of the real economy, rural revitalization, and improved pollution prevention and control measures.

The governments should avoid the practice of formalism and bureaucratism, they added.