Recently the State Council endorsed the document drafted by National Development and Reform Commission, Opinions on the Major Tasks of Deepening the Reforms of the economic system in 2014. As Chinese economy is facing the continuous downward situation, what are the focuses in this year’s economic system reform?

　　Delegating more powers to the market player for new vigor.

　　“The government should mainly abolish the administrative examination and approval procedures that obviously limit investment, business-starting, job creation, the development of economy and society, delegating more powers to the market and loosening the hold on the enterprises to the maximum.”

　　The document has given priority to accelerating the change of the government functions in the economic system reform, stressing streamlining administration and delegating power to the lower levels.

　　It has been clearly defined in the document that all the administrative examination and approval procedures should be published in detailed lists and available for public.

　　Decontrolling the whole competitive domain and making room for private capital

　　The document has clearly pointed out “The government needs to decontrol the whole competitive domain including the competitive business activities belonging to natural monopoly industries, providing platforms for private capital to participate”, when arranging how to deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises and accelerate the development of mixed ownership economy.

　　It also has proposed to “establish cooperation mechanism for the government and social capital.”

　　Densely implementing reforms of finance and taxation to support the real economy

　　Besides the reform of consumption tax and transforming business tax to added-value tax, the document has also proposed that the tax reform “should insist on straightening the expense of taxation, promoting the reform of coal resource tax, real estate tax and the lawmaking of environmental protection tax”

　　“The policy of proper taxation and illegal fees cancelling is actually clarifying the way of tax reform. Taking realty industry as instance, the government used to charge much unauthorized fees. That’s why we need to abolish unreasonable charges in realty industry and incorporate reasonable charges into tax. This process should be combined with lawmaking.” said Bai Jingming, the deputy director of the Fiscal Science Research Institution of the Ministry of Finance.

　　As for the local governmental debt which has aroused external attention, the document has presented “the government should renovate the financing channel, establishing the financing on equity mechanism based on local government bonds, and stripping out the finance companies’   function of financing for the government.

　　In terms of the reform of the monetary system, it has proposed to “accelerate the market-oriented reform of interest rate and exchange rate”, “to pay attention to developing the banks with distinct features owned by local corporations who are familiar with the local surroundings”, “to balance the relation of financial innovation and regulation, promoting the sound development of internet finance”, etc.

　　Impelling the price reform actively to improve the sensitivity and accuracy of price signal

　　“The government should impel the price reform of resources, transportation, telecommunication, medicine and medical services actively and steadily when the commodity price is generally stable.” It’s been definitely proposed in the document that all the prices which can be formed through market competition should be formed in the market.

　　Zhang Liqun, a researcher from the macro-economy department of the State Council Development Research Center, believed that price was the most important signal and lever for market economy, so the government should take the chance to promote the price reform and to   improve the sensitivity and accuracy of price signal. In this way, it can assure that the market has the decisive effect in the distribution of resources. Meaning while, the endurance capacity of the masses also should be taken into consideration.

　　Establishing the basic social security and service system to benefit the masses with the fruits of development

　　The reform doesn’t only concern the development of the country, but also is closely linked with people’s daily life. With the principle of ensuring the basic needs, keeping the bottom line and promoting social equity at its core, the document has stipulated that the government should deepen the reform of education, culture, medicine and healthcare, social security, housing security and so on to establish the basic social security and service system of the people’s living. “The proposing of establishing the basic social security and service system is an integration of the past policies benefitting the masses and it will be reinforced as governmental responsibility through institutional arrangement. The government needs to reduce the intervention in the micro-economy and strengthen the input in the basic social security for people’s living to make sure that urban and rural residents can generally enjoy the basic public services.”

　　(Reporters from the Xinhua News Agency: LiuZheng  FanXi  HeYuxin)