Zhonghongwang.com:

The recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan states that a strong domestic market provides strategic support for Chinese modernization. Could you elaborate on what concrete measures are included in the draft outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan to implement this deployment, particularly in advancing the development of a unified national market and promoting consumption? Thank you.

Zheng Bei:

Your question covers several aspects. I will invite Mr. Yuan Da to answer it.

Yuan Da:

Thank you for your question. A strong domestic market is a key advantage of a large economy. Practice has shown that it also provides us with confidence and resilience in responding to various risks and challenges.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China's development environment will face profound and complex changes. Strategic opportunities will coexist with risks and challenges, and uncertainties that are difficult to predict will increase. The draft outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposes building a strong domestic market, achieving a higher-level dynamic balance between supply and demand, and enhancing the endogenous momentum and reliability of domestic economic circulation. Let me briefly introduce the arrangements from three aspects: supply, domestic demand, and circulation.

First, optimizing the supply structure. Focusing on the areas that are in shortage, weak, traditional, and emerging, we will further improve the quality and capacity of the supply system. For areas where supply is currently insufficient, we will accelerate breakthroughs in key technologies. Efforts will be made across the entire innovation chain to achieve decisive breakthroughs in key and core technologies in priority fields such as integrated circuits, industrial machine tools, high-end instruments, basic software, advanced materials, and bio-manufacturing, thereby enhancing the self-reliance and controllability of industrial chains. For the areas where we need improvement, we will move at increased speed to address all shortcomings. We will implement initiatives to improve quality and expand capacity in the service sector, deepen reform and opening-up in services, improve the supporting policy system, strengthen weak links in producer services, and vigorously foster the "China Services" brand. For traditional industries, we will accelerate upgrading and optimization. Following sector-specific approaches, we will develop high-quality steel bases, world-class petrochemical bases, and high-end shipbuilding and marine engineering equipment bases. This will in turn promote innovation across the entire industrial chain of machinery and equipment, whilst expanding the supply of quality products in sectors such as light industry and textiles. For emerging industries, we will accelerate their cultivation and expansion. As Mr. Bai has already introduced this earlier, I will just add two points. The first is to develop stronger strategic emerging industry clusters in areas such as next-generation information technology, new energy, robotics, and aerospace, all of which are in line with local conditions. The other is to promote faster development of future industries, including quantum technology, brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence, and 6G.

Second, we will boost domestic demand. We will adhere to the "three integrations" and continuously consolidate and enhance the strength of China's enormous market. Firstly, we will continue to integrate adopted and new policies. We will deeply implement special actions to boost consumption and improve the effectiveness of adopted policies, including the implementation of major national strategies and security capacity building in key areas, a new round of large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-in programs, and new policy-backed financial tools. At the same time, we will speed up the implementation of new measures, such as a package of fiscal and financial coordination policies to promote domestic demand, and fully leverage the synergy of these policies. Secondly, we will continue to closely integrate improving people's living standards and promoting consumption. We will formulate and implement an income growth plan for both urban and rural residents, steadily raise the minimum wage standard, and increase government funds for promoting public well-being. At the same time, we will promote the expansion and upgrading of commodity consumption and release the potential of service consumption. Thirdly, we will continue to closely integrate investment in physical assets and people. We will optimize the government investment structure, and increase the proportion of livelihood-related government investment. We will stimulate the vitality of private investment, promote the opening of application scenarios in emerging fields to private enterprises, and equally ensure the demand for factors.

Third, we will strengthen the domestic economy. Focusing on the principle of "improving rules, maintaining order and optimizing facilities," we will accelerate the formation of a unified national market. We will improve rules, with a focus on improving the basic market institutional rules. We will promote the construction of systems such as those for property rights protection, market access, information disclosure, social credit, mergers and reorganizations, and market exit, and also improve statistics, fiscal and taxation, and evaluation systems that are conducive to building a unified market. We will maintain order, with a focus on maintaining fair competition market order, promote the improvement of market supervision rules, unification of benchmarks and enhancement of capabilities, regulate the economic promotion behavior of local governments, formulate lists of encouragements and prohibitions for local government investment promotion, and strengthen anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition law enforcement and judiciary. We will optimize facilities, with a focus on building high-standard interconnected market facilities. We will promote the connectivity and rule alignment of distribution and logistics, market information, trading platforms and other facilities, improve the efficient and smooth modern distribution system, and reduce logistics costs for the whole of society. Thank you.