CNBC:
I have two questions. The first is about employment. The newly added jobs in the first quarter were fewer than in the same period last year. Have you analyzed the reasons behind the decrease? Can you introduce the employment prospects for people aged above 35? My second question is about production. Considering the recent epidemic prevention and control measures, some businesses owners are worried that their businesses could be affected if production does not resume in May. What is your evaluation of the impact of halting production on the economy? Thank you.
Fu Linghui:
Thank you for your questions. Your questions are mainly about employment and the impact of epidemic on production. Since the beginning of this year, the international landscape continues to face grave challenges, while domestically, the impact of the epidemic still persists. Both have resulted in rising pressure on employment. Against this backdrop, the employment-first policy continues to produce effects, and the efforts for easing businesses' difficulties have been intensifying. Overall employment therefore remains stable. In the first quarter, the average surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5.5%, 0.1 percentage point higher than the same period last year. The unemployment rate among those aged between 25 and 59, the majority of the labor market, stood at 4.9%, unchanged from the same period last year.
While analyzing monthly trends, the surveyed urban unemployment rate rose in January and February, mainly because more people wanted to seek new jobs around the Chinese New Year. Based on our past experience, as those jobseekers would usually find new positions around March, the surveyed urban unemployment rate would gradually fall. However, the epidemic resurgence since March of this year has posed challenges for some jobseekers, stopping them from participating in job fairs. Therefore, the surveyed urban unemployment rate continued to rise in March to 5.8%, 0.3 percentage point higher than that in February. This reflected the increasing difficulty in production and business operations as well as mounting pressure on employment.
Although faced with difficulties, China still has many favorable conditions for stabilizing employment. Policies and measures to coordinate epidemic control and economic and social development will continue to produce effects, and the adverse impacts of the epidemic will be gradually brought under control. This year, the Chinese government will further the scale of tax-and-fee reductions and provide more effective support to the real economy so as to help ease the difficulties of businesses and ensure job opportunities. The robust environment for starting businesses and engaging in innovation is conducive to increasing jobs. Meanwhile, we have provided better vocational skills training and improved policies for employment support to facilitate supply-demand matching in the job market.
In the next stage, we will make full use of those favorable conditions to coordinate epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development. We will strive to maintain stable employment by strengthening the employment-first policy, easing the burdens of businesses to stabilize and expand employment, keeping the operations of market entities stable, and maintaining job security. We'll do this especially by improving policies on employment support for key groups such as college graduates and rural migrant workers.
As for the second question regarding the impact of the epidemic on production, since the beginning of this year, and March in particular, due to the COVID-19 resurgence in some areas, face-to-face sectors, especially the face-to-face service sector, have faced grave challenges. Consumption in catering, hospitality, retail, transport, and tourism has declined, which has had a negative influence on the production of the sectors involved. In areas with more severe epidemic situations, enterprises have reduced or even halted production. Fettered transport and logistics services also impeded industrial production. Despite those problems and pressure, we must see that there are favorable conditions for the Chinese economy to continue to recover.
First, the country's economy enjoys strong resilience, and the fundamentals sustaining its long-term economic growth remain unchanged, as does its economic recovery trajectory. China has a full-fledged industrial system, ever-improving infrastructure, and a super-sized domestic market. Efforts to promote innovation-driven development are paying off. All of these have laid a sound foundation for promoting sustained and healthy economic growth.
Second, the country has the requisite conditions to contain the epidemic in a scientific manner. Since the epidemic outbreak, China has conducted science-based and targeted prevention and control and developed a string of effective measures which agree with the actual conditions to ensure overall economic and social stability. Since the beginning of this year, the transmission of coronavirus has demonstrated new traits. However, as long as we stick to science-based prevention and control, we will gradually halt the spread of the epidemic and lower the negative impact of the epidemic on economic and social development.
Third, the country has rolled out a series of supportive policies. Since the beginning of this year, all local authorities and government departments have made economic stability our top priority, pursuing progress while ensuring stability and proactively introducing pro-stability policies. We will take further steps to cut taxes and fees, and tax and fee reductions this year are expected to reach 2.5 trillion yuan. In the face of the complex situation, we will further strengthen macro policies and encourage the financial sector to provide more effective support to the real economy. The People's Bank of China recently announced it would lower required reserve ratios to reduce financing costs of businesses, which will help enterprises resolve difficulties and promote stable economic performance.
In the next stage, we will continue to promote economic recovery by responding to the COVID-19 epidemic and pursuing economic and social development in a well-coordinated way. We will put into effect all measures for routine epidemic prevention and control and ensure that policies that have been introduced are implemented and deliver results at an early date. We will continue to expand domestic demand, help enterprises ease their difficulties, and ensure people's basic living needs. Thank you.
