Hong Kong Economic Herald:

We recently noted that the Guideline of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Accelerating the Establishment of a Unified Domestic Market was released. How should we understand the unified domestic market? In what aspects shall we build the market? Thanks.

Fu Linghui:

Thank you for your questions. The Guideline of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Accelerating the Establishment of a Unified Domestic Market was officially released. The guideline stipulates the acceleration of the development of mechanisms and rules for the unified national market, the breaking of local protectionism and market division, and the unblocking of key sticking points restricting economic circulation in order to promote the smooth movement of commercial goods as a production factor in a larger scale. It also stipulates that we should speed up the construction of an efficient and standardized unified domestic market featuring fair competition and sufficient opening-up, and comprehensively advance our domestic market to transform from growing bigger to stronger in a bid to provide a solid support for building a high-standard market system and a high-standard socialist market economy. All these will promote the improvement of relevant systems and advance high-quality economic development. 

First, the building of a unified domestic market is the shoring of the foundation and internal requirement of fostering the new development pattern. As China's economy has entered a high-quality development stage, in the face of the profound and complex changes in the international environment and the unbalanced and inadequate development inside of China, in order to realize the sustainable and sound economic growth, we have to implement the new development philosophy and accelerate the fostering of a double development dynamic, with the domestic economy and international engagement reinforcing each other, and the former as the mainstay. To promote the development of the domestic economy is inseparable from the building and improving of a unified domestic market. Only by accelerating the building of an efficient and normative unified domestic market can we promote the smooth flow of factors and resources and make the domestic economy more dynamic.

Second, the building of a unified domestic market is conducive to creating a stable, fair, transparent, and predictable business environment. In recent years, China has deeply implemented reforms to streamline administration and delegate power, improve regulation, and upgrade services, as well as actively built a market-orientated, law-based, and internationalized business environment. These efforts have provided a sound ecology for various types of market entities to invest and foster businesses, increased the number of market entities, injected vitality into the market, promoted the employment, and accelerated the development. In the next step, with the building of a unified domestic market and further improvement of the fair, transparent, and predictable business environment, we will further stimulate the potential of entrepreneurship and innovation, create more high-quality jobs, and promote the emergence of new industries and models in a bid to inject strong vitality into China's development. 

Third, the building of a unified domestic market is beneficial for promoting scientific and technological innovation and industrial upgrading. With a population of 1.4 billion, China has a distinctive advantage in utilizing its huge market. Building a unified domestic market, ensuring the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and allowing market demand to lead the efficient allocation of innovative resources and orderly flow and reasonable allocation of innovative factors, will encourage innovation, optimize the division of labor, promote competition, boost enterprises' willingness and capabilities to partake in scientific and technological innovation, promote the vigorous development of emerging industries, and encourage companies to go big. This is all in a bid to accelerate the reforms in quality, efficiency, and driving forces and provide strong support for China's high-quality economic development.

Meanwhile, the building of a unified domestic market will be helpful in further reducing market transaction costs and fostering new advantages in engaging with international competition and cooperation.

In the next step, we will earnestly implement the guideline on accelerating the establishment of a unified domestic market, which was jointly released by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council. We will strengthen the unification of basic market systems and rules, increase high-standard connectivity among market facilities, build a unified factor and resource market, promote high-standard unification between the commodity and service markets, advance fairness and unification in market regulation, and regulate inappropriate competition and acts of market intervention in a bid to accelerate the formation of a high-standard market system and promote sustainable and sound economic development.

Thank you.