Full Text: Report on the Work of the Government

2. Vigorously carrying out economic restructuring, and shoring up the foundation for long-term development. We closely integrated sustaining economic growth with economic restructuring, and moved more quickly to resolve structural problems limiting economic development.

We further strengthened the work related to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. The central government used 725.3 billion yuan to support agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, an increase of 21.8%. We raised the minimum grain purchase prices by a large margin. We began implementation of the plan to increase grain production capacity by 50 million tons nationwide. We continued to improve living and working conditions in rural areas. We implemented rural drinking water safety projects that benefited 60.69 million people, increased the number of methane gas users by 5.1 million, built and upgraded 380,000 kilometers of roads and 266,000 kilometers of electric power lines and renovated 800,000 dilapidated houses in the countryside, and helped build permanent housing for 92,000 nomadic families. We also intensified our efforts to fight poverty. As a result, working and living conditions notably improved in poverty-stricken areas.

We intensified industrial restructuring. We formulated and implemented a plan for restructuring and invigorating ten key industries. We encouraged enterprises to accelerate technological upgrading, and provided 20 billion yuan to support 4,441 technological upgrading projects. Further progress was made in mergers and reorganization in key industries. We made great efforts to restrict excess production capacity and redundant development in some industries. We closed down 26.17 million kilowatts of small thermal power stations, and eliminated backward facilities with total production capacity of 16.91 million tons in the steelmaking industry, 21.13 million tons in the iron-smelting industry, 74.16 million tons in the cement industry, and 18.09 million tons in the coke industry. We accelerated the implementation of major national science and technology projects, and spent 151.2 billion yuan of central government funds on science and technology, an increase of 30%. We vigorously supported the widespread use of domestically innovated products, and the development of emerging industries such as clean energy and third-generation mobile communications. We vigorously strengthened infrastructure development; put 5,557 kilometers of newly built railway lines into operation; opened 4,719 kilometers of new expressways to traffic, accelerated urban rail development; and built, renovated or expanded 35 civil airports. We increased the installed power-generating capacity by 89.7 million kilowatts, began supplying gas through the western section of the second line of the project for shipping natural gas from west to east, accelerated construction on the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, and began reinforcing 6,183 dangerous reservoirs.

We made solid progress in conserving energy, reducing emissions and protecting the environment. We supported 2,983 key energy conservation and recycling projects through budgetary investment. We implemented a project to promote energy-efficient products for the benefit of the people, putting into use more than 5 million energy-saving air-conditioners and 150 million energy-efficient light bulbs. We continued to develop key ecological projects in the forestry industry, and completed the afforestation of 5.88 million hectares, thereby raising the percentage of land covered by forest to 20.36%. Through combined measures, we brought soil erosion on 48,000 square kilometers of land under control. We strengthened the prevention and treatment of water pollution in the key watersheds of the Huai, Hai, and Liao rivers and Tai, Chao, and Dianchi lakes, and improved the control of wastewater, gases and residues from industry. Over the first four years of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, energy consumption per unit of GDP fell 14.38 %, and chemical oxygen demand and sulfur dioxide emissions decreased 9.66% and 13.14% respectively. We made vigorous efforts to respond to climate change, and set forth our country's targets, policies and measures for controlling greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. We improved our weather forecasting and early warning, as well as earthquake monitoring, and constantly improved our disaster prevention and protection capabilities.

We took new steps in balancing development between regions. We thoroughly implemented the overall strategy for regional development, and formulated several major regional development plans and policies. The central and western regions and northeast China accelerated opening up and development, welcomed industries relocated from other parts of the country, and continuously strengthened their foundation for development. The eastern region accelerated restructuring and independent innovation, and the vitality of its economic development increased. A favorable situation emerged in which regional development was better distributed, structured and coordinated.