On 13 July, Li Keqiang, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Premier of the State Council, chaired a symposium on China's economic situation with experts and business leaders, to assess the current economic operation and solicit views and suggestions for economic work going forward.
Noting the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 and global economic recession on the Chinese economy, Li recognized the united efforts across the country under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, to bring spread of the virus under control and reopen the economy as soon as conditions permit. Li said that recent stabilization and recovering growth at home attest to the strong resilience and enormous potential of the Chinese economy, and called for firming up confidence in development.
In face of rising uncertainty and a grave situation worldwide, Li urged preparing for tough challenges ahead, especially posed by the high employment pressure and other difficulties confronting the economy at home. Li underlined the imperative to take Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guide, and fully implement the decisions made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.
Supported by normalized containment measures, Li emphasized the need for full delivery of the sizable-scale policies designed to provide relief to businesses and revitalize the market, in order to maintain stability in the six key areas and put in place protections in another six areas. He called for intensified efforts in taking forward reform and opening-up, to protect the economic fundamentals, support basic living needs, stave off risks and attain the goals and tasks for economic and social development this year.
Li stressed the importance to implement the macro policies in a timely and efficient way, focusing on supporting jobs, people's livelihoods and market entities. He urged sticking to and fully executing the proactive fiscal policy, prudent monetary policy and employment-first policy, to deliver larger-scale tax and fee cuts and interest concessions to companies.
The mechanism set up this year through reform to funnel increased fiscal funds directly to primary-level governments should be up and running as quickly as possible to bring real benefits to companies and the people.
Liquidity needs to be reasonably sufficient. More needs to be done to ease the financing difficulty facing enterprises, especially smaller ones, and modern technologies should be harnessed in developing inclusive finance, to effectively increase credit issuance and lower overall financing cost.
A multi-pronged approach should be employed to help college graduates and rural migrant workers who have returned to their hometowns, and other key populations land jobs. Differentiated tax and fee rates, and financial support policies will be introduced for labor-intensive enterprises, to encourage them to expand hiring.
Li urged continuing to unlock impetus by reform and opening-up, to fully energize market players and enhance development resilience. He called for deepening reform of government functions, and improving the business environment, where the market may better play its decisive role in allocating resources and the government perform its duties more effectively.
The ecosystem for entrepreneurship and innovation will be improved, to attract and pool talent. The industrial internet will be proactively developed, and more new forms of industry and business models be nurtured through integrated growth of businesses of different sizes. This will help develop new edges in international competition and cooperation under greater openness.
Reform will be instituted in unleashing greater consumption potential. Online platforms will be employed together with offline channels, to expand sales of farm produce and domestic sale of export-oriented products. The supply of diverse, quality consumer goods will be increased, as part of the effort to guide consumption upgrading.
The development of new infrastructure, new urbanization and key projects will be taken forward by leveraging government investment and spurring private investment, to boost the growth of relevant industries and jobs through such effective investment.