Report on the implementation of the 2014 plan for national economic and social development and on the 2015 draft plan for national economic and social development (12)

2. Accelerating economic structural reform

We will strive to refine and implement existing reform plans and increase coordination and cooperation during their implementation in order to ensure that all reform measures are put into effect. We will correctly balance the relationship between the government and the market, move faster to establish a sound, unified, and open nationwide market system that ensures orderly competition, put forward more reform measures to invigorate the market, and turn the new benefits of reform into a new driving force for development.

1) We will fully advance the law-based exercise of administrative power.

We will press ahead with formulating and improving laws and regulations regarding plans for development, investment management, land management, energy and mineral resources, economic security, and other aspects, thus promptly consolidating our achievements in reform through the means of legislation. We will improve the mechanism for soliciting opinions from the public, conducting expert evaluations, risk assessments, and legality reviews, and carrying out collective discussions before making major policy decisions. We will establish a system of baselines for administrative discretionary powers regarding the review and approval of items and the imposing of administrative penalties. We will work hard to promote transparency in government operations. We will strengthen constraints on and oversight over the exercise of power.

2) We will deepen reform of government review and approval.

We will cancel or delegate to lower-level governments the process of government review and approval for an additional number of items and fully sort out the items requiring non-administrative review and approval. We will greatly streamline preliminary review and approval procedures, review and regulate intermediary services, and deepen reform of the business system. Stronger oversight will be exercised over items and projects during and after handling. We will draw up a negative list for market access, and ensure provincial-level governments release their lists of powers and responsibilities. We will put more emphasis on cooperation between the central and local authorities and coordination between relevant departments when carrying out our reform measures.

3) We will press ahead with the reforms of SOEs and the development of the non-public sector.

We will formulate guidelines on deepening reform of SOEs and carry out the reform by their type. We will move faster to relieve enterprises of their obligation to operate social programs and solve their longstanding problems in this regard. We will reform and improve the incentive and restraint mechanisms for SOE executives. We will develop mixed-ownership structures within SOEs in an orderly fashion, and encourage and set rules for non-state capital in holding shares of the investment projects of SOEs. We will continue to tighten oversight over state assets with the focus on state capital, and accelerate trials of forming corporations to invest and manage state capital. We will deepen structural reforms of electricity, petroleum, and natural gas industries. We will continue to optimize the institutional environment for developing the non-public sector, and further open up market access to encourage and guide more nongovernmental capital into areas such as basic industries, municipal public utilities, social programs, and financial services in order to give expression to the vitality and creativity of the non-public sector.

4) We will press ahead with reform of the fiscal and tax systems.

Except for those dealing with classified matters, we will make public the budgets and final accounts of all central and local departments. We will reform the system of transfer payments from the central government to local governments. We will review and standardize preferential policies such as preferential tax policies. We will levy price-based resource tax on more resource products, speed up legislation to introduce environmental protection tax, and push forward revisions to the Law on Tax Collection and Administration. We will deepen reform of the system of compensation for the exploitation of national mineral resources. We will strengthen local government debt management.

5) We will ensure better financial services for the real economy.

We will improve the system of multilevel capital markets and vigorously develop inclusive finance. We will step up efforts to develop small and medium-sized financial institutions committed to serving small and micro businesses as well as agriculture, rural areas, and farmers; energetically push forward the establishment of private banks; deepen reform of rural credit cooperatives; and advance the reform of government-sponsored development financial institutions and policy-backed financial institutions. We will establish the deposit insurance system. We will carry out the reform of stock issuance registration, launch trials of equity-based crowd-funding, and increase the proportion of direct financing. We will explore how to set up outbound RMB cooperative funds. We will encourage Internet banking to develop in an innovative and standardized way. We will research and roll out new types of insurance such as major disaster insurance and credit insurance, and support agricultural insurance in favoring various new agricultural entities.

6) We will deepen reform of the investment and financing system.

We will vigorously promote reform of the project review and approval system; build an online platform for reviewing, approving, and monitoring investment projects, ensuring that by the end of 2015, project review and approval procedures can be handled online nationwide; and establish a mechanism for coordinating oversight over investment projects. We will improve the relevant measures and detailed rules for their implementation for making innovations in the mechanisms for investment and financing in key areas and encouraging nongovernmental investment; further open up market access for nongovernmental capital; formulate measures for managing the franchising of infrastructure and public utilities; and actively promote application of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. We will issue the Regulations on Government Investment.

7) We will accelerate price reform.

We will revise the government pricing catalogue; stop setting prices for most medicines; lift the control of purchasing prices for tobacco leaves, a portion of rail fares and freight rates, rates and fees for some postal services, and charges for professional services; and delegate to lower levels of government the power to set prices for some basic public services. We will extend to more areas the trial price reform of electricity transmission and distribution. For non-residential consumption of natural gas, we will unify the price of gas consumption within 2014 levels with the price of gas consumption exceeding 2014 levels, and gradually lift control of the price for non-residential gas consumption. We will refine environmental protection price policies. We will implement tiered pricing for electricity, water, and natural gas used for household purposes throughout the country. We will make guidelines on reviewing and canceling all kinds of regulations and practices impeding the national unified market and fair competition, and work hard to get rid of various types of market segmentation and regional barriers.