We will deepen reform of the fiscal, tax, investment and pricing systems.
Fiscal reform will focus on improving the public finance system, transfer
payment system and budget management system, and implementing reform of the
classification of government revenue and expenditures. We will vigorously
proceed with VAT reform and adjust the resource tax. We will study how to create
a unified tax system covering all types of enterprises. Reform of the investment
system will focus on implementing a system that grants independence in
investment coupled with responsibility for risk, improving the system of project
approval and record-keeping, releasing more investment information, improving
and implementing market access rules, and improving macroeconomic regulation of
investment. In pricing reform, we will focus on gradually streamlining and
improving the pricing mechanism for resource products and related factors of
production. In doing so, we need to take into account the interests of all
parties and pay particular attention to the needs of low-income people.
We will continue working to improve and standardize market order. We will
improve market legislation and accelerate development of a credit system for the
general public. We will severely punish, in accordance with the law, parties who
engage in production and sale of counterfeit goods, commercial fraud, smuggling
and selling of smuggled goods, tax evasion and tax fraud, financial and
securities crimes, and violations of intellectual property rights. We will
resolutely prosecute people involved in pyramid schemes, including ones in
disguised forms. We will pool our resources to launch special campaigns to
promote food safety, strictly control market access for food products, and
strengthen oversight and management of the entire production and distribution
process to assure the people of the safety of the food supply.
We will open still wider to the outside world and make better use of domestic
and international markets and resources. We need to change the pattern of growth
of foreign trade, improve the mix of imports and exports, and correct the
imbalance between imports and exports. We will support the export of service
products and high value-added products with Chinese intellectual property rights
and trademarks and continue to control the export of highly polluting products,
resource products and products that consume excessive quantities of energy. We
will speed up the process of upgrading the processing trade and improving the
geographical distribution of the processing trade industry. Imports will be
expanded by a suitable amount, particularly imports of advanced technology, key
equipment and resources that China lacks. We will continue to make energetic and
effective use of foreign capital and strive to improve its performance. We will
further open the service sector to foreign competition. We will support
qualified enterprises in going global, making overseas investments, conducting
international business in conformance with general international practices, and
establishing processing centers, marketing and service networks and R&D
centers in other countries. We will institute a policy support and service
system and improve the mechanisms for coordinating overseas investment and risk
management.
Since the transitional period for China's accession to the WTO will basically
end this year, we need to heighten our sense of urgency to be sure we complete
all related work. We will improve the system and mechanisms for managing foreign
economic activities to better facilitate trade and investment. We will make use
of WTO rules to make key sectors more risk-resistant and more competitive
internationally. We will make the mechanism for dealing with trade disputes more
efficient and handle trade frictions properly. We will carry out negotiations on
regional economic cooperation and free trade zones in a step-by-step and focused
manner. We will play a constructive role in the new round of WTO talks.
7. Paying close attention to solving problems related to the vital interests
of the people
We must always keep in mind our obligation to run the government for the
people and do everything for their benefit. We need to promptly solve practical
problems concerning public interests that the people are most concerned about
and that affect them most directly. In particular, we must do a good job in work
related to employment, social security, medical care and production safety.
We will continue to follow the policy of expanding employment and do
everything possible to do so. We will continue to create jobs for workers laid
off because of economic transformation or because of enterprise reorganization,
restructuring, closure or bankruptcy. Policies to support reemployment of
employees laid off from state-owned enterprises will be extended for another
three years, and coverage will be gradually extended to employees laid off from
collectively owned urban enterprises where local conditions permit. More support
will be given to the reemployment of workers laid off from the defense industry,
the logging industry and other industries experiencing difficulties. A total of
25.1 billion yuan will be allocated from the central government budget this year
for reemployment work, 4.2 billion yuan more than last year. Local governments
should also increase budgetary allocations for this work. We will pay close
attention to helping university graduates find jobs and helping demobilized army
personnel return to civilian life, and we will create more jobs for urban
residents entering the job market for the first time and for rural laborers
coming to cities to find jobs. We will improve vocational training and
employment services. We will effectively protect the lawful rights and interests
of workers.
We will speed up development of the social security system. We will ensure
that all social security benefits are paid on time. We will improve the system
of basic old-age insurance for urban workers. We will do a good job in the pilot
project to properly set up individual retirement accounts and expand the trials
to more areas. We will reform the way old-age pensions are calculated and paid,
and introduce incentive and restraint mechanisms to encourage more people to
participate in old-age insurance programs. We will extend coverage of social
security programs to more employees of enterprises under all forms of ownership
and to self-employed people and people without fixed employment in urban areas.
We will strengthen collection of social security contributions, strengthen
oversight and management of collected funds, and raise social security funds
through a variety of channels. In addition, we will step up development of the
basic medical, unemployment, workers' compensation and maternity insurance
systems for urban residents and continue to improve the system of urban
subsistence allowances. We will work out a plan for reforming the old-age
insurance system in government bodies and institutions. We will work out social
security measures suitable for rural migrant workers. We will improve the system
for providing food, clothing, medical care, housing and burial expenses for
childless and infirm rural residents, the system for providing assistance to
families in extreme poverty and the system for providing relief to disaster
victims by increasing financial support and appropriately raising the level of
assistance. Governments in localities where conditions permit need to look for
ways to set up a system of subsistence allowances for rural residents. All local
governments need to accelerate development of community-based relief systems for
urban and rural residents with special needs. We will improve the work of
preventing, reducing and responding to disasters. We will intensify poverty
alleviation work and increase investment init to further reduce the number of
people living in poverty. Preferential treatment will be given to the families
of revolutionary martyrs and military personnel. We will continue to develop
public welfare and charity programs and undertake various activities to solicit
public contributions and participation. We must make sure that orphaned children
and elderly and disabled persons with no source of income receive more care and
assistance so they may experience the warmth of our large socialist family.
We will give a high priority to medical and health care work. We will
concentrate on the following three areas to gradually resolve the lack of
adequate and affordable medical services. First is to speed up the development
of a rural medical and healthcare system. We will launch the Program for
Establishing and Developing a Rural Health Care Service System to improve the
system and network of medical and health care that spans the three levels of
county, township and village. The state will spend more than 20 billion yuan
over the next five years on renovating hospital buildings in towns and townships
and in some counties and upgrading their equipment. We will speed up the
establishment of a new type of rural cooperative medical care system by
extending the scope of current trials to 40 percent of the counties in China
this year and by increasing the allowances paid by the central and local
governments to farmers participating in the system from 20 yuan to 40 yuan. An
additional 4.2 billion yuan will be allocated from the central government budget
for this program. By 2008, this new system and a rural medical assistance system
should be basically in place in all rural areas. We will regularly send urban
medical personnel to work in rural health facilities. Second is to strengthen
urban community health services. We will accelerate the establishment of a new
type of community-based system of urban medical and health care services by
redirecting urban medical and health resources, increasing government spending,
providing more training, improving services, and promoting innovations in
mechanisms. Qualified community health care clinics will be included in the
urban basic medical insurance program, and we will carry out pilot projects to
gradually make community clinics the first option in medical treatment for minor
medical problems, leaving hospitals free to treat only more serious problems. We
will explore ways to set up an urban medical assistance system. Third is to
deepen reform of the medical care and health service system and fully restore
and standardize order in medical services and the production and marketing of
medicines.We will improve oversight and management of prices for medicines and
medical services. We will standardize the medical practices of hospitals and
doctors and the way they prescribe drugs, and ensure that medical ethics and the
medical code of conduct are strictly observed to improve medical services and
control medical costs. We will support the development of traditional Chinese
medicine and make full use of it in preventing and treating diseases. We will
also intensify prevention of serious diseases that endanger the health of the
general public and implement measures to prevent and control major communicable
diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and snail fever. We will give a high
priority to preventing and controlling the spread of highly pathogenic avian
influenza to humans.