Xi stresses building unified national market, promoting marine economy's high-quality development

BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, chairman of the Central Military Commission and director of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs (CCFEA), presided over the sixth meeting of the CCFEA on the morning of July 1. The meeting was held to discuss further building a unified national market and promoting the high-quality development of the marine economy. Xi delivered an important speech, stressing that building a unified national market is essential for creating a new development pattern and promoting high-quality development. He urged earnest implementation of plans made by the CPC Central Committee and called for strengthened coordination and cooperation in building synergy to advance the related work. Xi also stressed that advancing Chinese modernization requires promoting the marine economy's high-quality development and forging a Chinese path of leveraging marine resources to achieve strength.

Li Qiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese premier and deputy director of the CCFEA; Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, a member of the CPC Central Committee Secretariat and a member of the CCFEA; and Ding Xuexiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese vice premier and a member of the CCFEA, attended the meeting.

The meeting noted that advancing the building of a unified national market requires "five unifications and one opening up," namely the unification of underlying market institutions, market infrastructure, government conduct, regulatory enforcement, and markets of production factors and resources, as well as the continuous expansion of the opening up both internally and externally.

To deepen the building of a unified national market, it is important to focus on key and difficult tasks. Efforts must be made to deal with the problem of disorderly price competition among some enterprises in accordance with laws and regulations, guide enterprises to improve product quality, and phase out backward production capacity in an orderly manner. Government procurement and tendering procedures must be standardized, with strengthened fairness reviews of bid award decisions. Local governments' practices to attract investment must be regulated with enhanced disclosure of related information. The meeting called for promoting the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade, facilitating channels for export-to-domestic sales, and cultivating a number of reputable enterprises excelling in both domestic and international markets. The meeting also stressed the need to continuously regulate enterprise-related law enforcement through dedicated campaigns, and improve fiscal and taxation systems, statistics and accounting systems and credit systems that are conducive to realizing market unification. Officials should be guided to have a correct understanding of what it means to perform well, and the evaluation framework for high-quality development and the system for assessing officials' performance should be refined.

To promote the high-quality development of the marine economy, there should be a greater focus on innovation-driven growth, efficient coordination, industrial renewal, harmony between human and the sea, and win-win cooperation, according to the meeting.

To promote the high-quality development of the marine economy, efforts must be made to strengthen top-level design, increase policy support, and encourage private capital participation in the marine economy. It is imperative to enhance the independent innovation capacity in marine science and technology, reinforce strategic marine science and technology capabilities, and foster the growth of leading marine technology enterprises as well as small and medium-sized enterprises that use specialized and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products. Efforts should be made to build stronger, more competitive, and scaled-up marine industries, such as accelerating regulated and orderly development of offshore wind power, promoting modern deep-sea fishing, developing marine bio-medicines and bio-products, building marine-themed cultural and tourism destinations, and advancing the high-quality development of the maritime transport industry. The meeting urged efforts to strengthen research and planning for the development of bay area economy, and push forward the optimization and integration of coastal port clusters in an orderly manner. The meeting emphasized the need to enhance marine ecological protection, carry out comprehensive treatment of key marine areas in a sustained way, actively promote the multi-layer utilization of sea areas, and explore to carry out ocean carbon sink accounting. China should also deeply participate in global ocean governance, and strengthen international cooperation in marine scientific research and surveys, disaster prevention and mitigation, and the blue economy, the meeting stressed.

Members of the CCFEA attended the meeting, and leading officials from central Party and state departments sat in on the meeting.