Government Work Report (2006)
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-03-15 11:05

We will deepen reform of the fiscal, tax, investment and pricing systems. Fiscal reform will focus on improving the public finance system, transfer payment system and budget management system, and implementing reform of the classification of government revenue and expenditures. We will vigorously proceed with VAT reform and adjust the resource tax. We will study how to create a unified tax system covering all types of enterprises. Reform of the investment system will focus on implementing a system that grants independence in investment coupled with responsibility for risk, improving the system of project approval and record-keeping, releasing more investment information, improving and implementing market access rules, and improving macroeconomic regulation of investment. In pricing reform, we will focus on gradually streamlining and improving the pricing mechanism for resource products and related factors of production. In doing so, we need to take into account the interests of all parties and pay particular attention to the needs of low-income people.

We will continue working to improve and standardize market order. We will improve market legislation and accelerate development of a credit system for the general public. We will severely punish, in accordance with the law, parties who engage in production and sale of counterfeit goods, commercial fraud, smuggling and selling of smuggled goods, tax evasion and tax fraud, financial and securities crimes, and violations of intellectual property rights. We will resolutely prosecute people involved in pyramid schemes, including ones in disguised forms. We will pool our resources to launch special campaigns to promote food safety, strictly control market access for food products, and strengthen oversight and management of the entire production and distribution process to assure the people of the safety of the food supply.

We will open still wider to the outside world and make better use of domestic and international markets and resources. We need to change the pattern of growth of foreign trade, improve the mix of imports and exports, and correct the imbalance between imports and exports. We will support the export of service products and high value-added products with Chinese intellectual property rights and trademarks and continue to control the export of highly polluting products, resource products and products that consume excessive quantities of energy. We will speed up the process of upgrading the processing trade and improving the geographical distribution of the processing trade industry. Imports will be expanded by a suitable amount, particularly imports of advanced technology, key equipment and resources that China lacks. We will continue to make energetic and effective use of foreign capital and strive to improve its performance. We will further open the service sector to foreign competition. We will support qualified enterprises in going global, making overseas investments, conducting international business in conformance with general international practices, and establishing processing centers, marketing and service networks and R&D centers in other countries. We will institute a policy support and service system and improve the mechanisms for coordinating overseas investment and risk management.

Since the transitional period for China's accession to the WTO will basically end this year, we need to heighten our sense of urgency to be sure we complete all related work. We will improve the system and mechanisms for managing foreign economic activities to better facilitate trade and investment. We will make use of WTO rules to make key sectors more risk-resistant and more competitive internationally. We will make the mechanism for dealing with trade disputes more efficient and handle trade frictions properly. We will carry out negotiations on regional economic cooperation and free trade zones in a step-by-step and focused manner. We will play a constructive role in the new round of WTO talks.

7. Paying close attention to solving problems related to the vital interests of the people

We must always keep in mind our obligation to run the government for the people and do everything for their benefit. We need to promptly solve practical problems concerning public interests that the people are most concerned about and that affect them most directly. In particular, we must do a good job in work related to employment, social security, medical care and production safety.

We will continue to follow the policy of expanding employment and do everything possible to do so. We will continue to create jobs for workers laid off because of economic transformation or because of enterprise reorganization, restructuring, closure or bankruptcy. Policies to support reemployment of employees laid off from state-owned enterprises will be extended for another three years, and coverage will be gradually extended to employees laid off from collectively owned urban enterprises where local conditions permit. More support will be given to the reemployment of workers laid off from the defense industry, the logging industry and other industries experiencing difficulties. A total of 25.1 billion yuan will be allocated from the central government budget this year for reemployment work, 4.2 billion yuan more than last year. Local governments should also increase budgetary allocations for this work. We will pay close attention to helping university graduates find jobs and helping demobilized army personnel return to civilian life, and we will create more jobs for urban residents entering the job market for the first time and for rural laborers coming to cities to find jobs. We will improve vocational training and employment services. We will effectively protect the lawful rights and interests of workers.

We will speed up development of the social security system. We will ensure that all social security benefits are paid on time. We will improve the system of basic old-age insurance for urban workers. We will do a good job in the pilot project to properly set up individual retirement accounts and expand the trials to more areas. We will reform the way old-age pensions are calculated and paid, and introduce incentive and restraint mechanisms to encourage more people to participate in old-age insurance programs. We will extend coverage of social security programs to more employees of enterprises under all forms of ownership and to self-employed people and people without fixed employment in urban areas. We will strengthen collection of social security contributions, strengthen oversight and management of collected funds, and raise social security funds through a variety of channels. In addition, we will step up development of the basic medical, unemployment, workers' compensation and maternity insurance systems for urban residents and continue to improve the system of urban subsistence allowances. We will work out a plan for reforming the old-age insurance system in government bodies and institutions. We will work out social security measures suitable for rural migrant workers. We will improve the system for providing food, clothing, medical care, housing and burial expenses for childless and infirm rural residents, the system for providing assistance to families in extreme poverty and the system for providing relief to disaster victims by increasing financial support and appropriately raising the level of assistance. Governments in localities where conditions permit need to look for ways to set up a system of subsistence allowances for rural residents. All local governments need to accelerate development of community-based relief systems for urban and rural residents with special needs. We will improve the work of preventing, reducing and responding to disasters. We will intensify poverty alleviation work and increase investment init to further reduce the number of people living in poverty. Preferential treatment will be given to the families of revolutionary martyrs and military personnel. We will continue to develop public welfare and charity programs and undertake various activities to solicit public contributions and participation. We must make sure that orphaned children and elderly and disabled persons with no source of income receive more care and assistance so they may experience the warmth of our large socialist family.

We will give a high priority to medical and health care work. We will concentrate on the following three areas to gradually resolve the lack of adequate and affordable medical services. First is to speed up the development of a rural medical and healthcare system. We will launch the Program for Establishing and Developing a Rural Health Care Service System to improve the system and network of medical and health care that spans the three levels of county, township and village. The state will spend more than 20 billion yuan over the next five years on renovating hospital buildings in towns and townships and in some counties and upgrading their equipment. We will speed up the establishment of a new type of rural cooperative medical care system by extending the scope of current trials to 40 percent of the counties in China this year and by increasing the allowances paid by the central and local governments to farmers participating in the system from 20 yuan to 40 yuan. An additional 4.2 billion yuan will be allocated from the central government budget for this program. By 2008, this new system and a rural medical assistance system should be basically in place in all rural areas. We will regularly send urban medical personnel to work in rural health facilities. Second is to strengthen urban community health services. We will accelerate the establishment of a new type of community-based system of urban medical and health care services by redirecting urban medical and health resources, increasing government spending, providing more training, improving services, and promoting innovations in mechanisms. Qualified community health care clinics will be included in the urban basic medical insurance program, and we will carry out pilot projects to gradually make community clinics the first option in medical treatment for minor medical problems, leaving hospitals free to treat only more serious problems. We will explore ways to set up an urban medical assistance system. Third is to deepen reform of the medical care and health service system and fully restore and standardize order in medical services and the production and marketing of medicines.We will improve oversight and management of prices for medicines and medical services. We will standardize the medical practices of hospitals and doctors and the way they prescribe drugs, and ensure that medical ethics and the medical code of conduct are strictly observed to improve medical services and control medical costs. We will support the development of traditional Chinese medicine and make full use of it in preventing and treating diseases. We will also intensify prevention of serious diseases that endanger the health of the general public and implement measures to prevent and control major communicable diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and snail fever. We will give a high priority to preventing and controlling the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza to humans.