China Financial and Economic News:

In recent years, China has made significant efforts to relieve the pressure of market entities. As Premier Li Keqiang said, market entities have provided much support in sustaining positive growth in the domestic economy as well as to meet employment goals in the last year. This year, China continues to adopt multiple measures to serve market entities. What are the major contributions made by vigorous market entities to the stellar economic performance in Q1? How do you see the relationship between the market entities and the country's economic performance? Thank you.

Liu Aihua:

Thank you for your questions. Market entities are the foundation of the market economy. Since last year, China has adopted many macro policies to cut taxes and fees to alleviate the difficulties of market entities and meet their demands. Those policies have been very effective in protecting market entities. From this year's statistics, we can see that the macro-economy is generally recovering and stabilizing, which is supported by the efforts of market entities at the micro-level. Moreover, as production and operations improve, businesses are gaining confidence. We can see this from the many statistics mentioned above, including the production and operations of some micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). In this year's government work report, China says it will continue to alleviate the difficulties of market entities; ensure continuity, consistency, and sustainability of macro policies; and avoid sharp turns in policy. This shows that China will maintain necessary policy support for market entities to recover. I believe that policy support will not only benefit the macro-economy but also promote higher quality and a higher level of employment.

MSMEs are now seeing better performance in their production and operations. They have also shown stronger confidence. In March, the PMI of small and medium enterprises had returned above the threshold, demonstrating stronger confidence among market entities. As macro policies continue to alleviate their difficulties, market entities, which are supported by their strong resilience, are bound to enjoy better production and operations this year. Thank you.

Shou Xiaoli:

Thank you, Ms. Liu, and friends from the media. This is the end of today's press conference. Goodbye.

Translated and edited by Zhu Bochen, Huang Shan, Xu Xiaoxuan, Wang Qian, Zhang Rui, Zhang Junmian, Cui Can, Mi Xingang, Wang Yanfang, Gong Yingchun, Fan Junmei, Zhang Tingting, Chen Xia, Yan Xiaoqing, Guo Yiming, Li Huiru, David Ball, and Tom Arnstein. In case of any discrepancy between the English and Chinese texts, the Chinese version is deemed to prevail.