Full transcript of policy briefing of the State Council on Jan 16, 2015

China Central Television:

I have a question for vice-chairman Zhu Zhixin. As you have mentioned, the world economy has just recovered from recession over the past year, and China has gone through the ordeal. How do you evaluate China's macro economic situation in 2014? Thank you.

Zhu Zhixin:

First, as I have mentioned, the recovery of the global economy is weaker than expectations. If you look at the predictions of the World Bank, United Nations, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Monetary Fund, you will find that these organizations keep lowering their figures for global economic growth. So, the global community holds the same view on the global economy.

Second, I also said that the domestic economy is faced with growing risks and challenges. Under such circumstances, we should stick to the general tone of seeking progress amid stability, according to the idea of stable macro policy, flexible micro policy and underpinning social policy. I think the government could learn a lot from the efforts we have done last year in deepening reform, adjusting structure and improving people's livelihood. We have done a good job in integrating the three aspects and thus avoided major fluctuations in the economy.

As I have mentioned, China has had stable growth in the first three quarters of 2014, with growth rate of 7.4 percent, 7.5 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.

If you have studied economics, you will know that the macro policy is supposed to ease economic fluctuations. It is not an easy thing, but we have realized stable economic growth last year. That's my overall evaluation.

Zhu Zhixin:

Now, I'd like to explain more.

The first thing is stability, which means that the economic development, employment and commodity prices should be kept at a stable level. The number of China's newly employed people last year exceeded the expected 10 million and is estimated to be over 13 million. I think this is a marvelous achievement, even globally. Moreover, we have kept commodity prices stable.

I think we also had several highlights last year.

First, in terms of the adjustment of economic structure, I'd like to take the example of agriculture. China has to feed 1.36 billion people. President Xi Jinping has emphasized that we should rely on ourselves to solve the issue of grain supply. So I think it is not easy for China to realize stable growth in grain production for 11 years consecutively. We also noticed the growing proportion of the service sector in this process. This shows the improvements we have made in structural adjustments.

Second, progress has been made in improving the quality of economic growth. People's livelihood plays a key role in measuring economic development. I have mentioned that residents' income has increased faster than economic growth and the number of impoverished people has declined. We are also making progress in areas of education, culture, public health and social insurance, especially in reducing energy consumption and environmental management. This shows that we have done better in the transformation of growth modes as well as improving the quality of economic growth.

Third, breakthroughs have been made in reform and opening up. China's reform has come to a crucial period and it concerns the interests of many people, so it is not easy to make such breakthroughs. As I have mentioned, the reform is being carried out in a wide area with solid efforts, and the result is quite satisfactory. I want to point out that the reforms have added new driving forces to China's economic growth and the effects will soon be revealed with the implementation of policies.

I think last year's economic development features highlights in structural adjustment, quality improvement of economic growth and the breakthrough in reform and opening up. We have made great efforts in achieving the progress and I hope that we can make further achievements in the new year.