China's economic planning agency outlines key reform tasks

BEIJING - China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Saturday vowed to deepen fiscal and market reforms this year to facilitate investment, trade and provide extra momentum for urbanization, environmental protection and social reforms.

In a "to-do list"-like report posted on the commission's website following a two-day meeting that focused on China's economic reforms, the NDRC outlined nine major reform priorities the country would undertake this year.

The NDRC will deepen reform in its investment system by simplifying and delegating the approval process, and open more investment projects to social capital.

It will also push forward price reform for resource products by letting the market play the major role in price setting, and will deepen reform in the fiscal and financial sector.

The latter includes building a fully-regulated and transparent budget system and a government debt financing system, promoting reform in taxation and in the marketization of interest rates and exchange rates, and developing a multi-layer capital market.

Meanwhile, reform of state-owned enterprises should also be promoted, and rules must be laid down to build a just, open and transparent market, the NDRC said, highlighting the establishment of a negative list system on market access, a social credit system and market oversight.

The commission also urged for efforts to deepen reforms concerning China's urbanization drive and to facilitate investment and trade by opening the country's service sector to the foreign capital.

Reforms in sectors such as education, health, culture, social insurance, housing security and income distribution should be reinforced to ensure that all Chinese citizens could better share the fruit of the country's development more fairly, the NDRC said, adding that a resource conservation and an environmental protection system should also be set up.

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