Chinese premier chairs State Council executive meeting

BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Saturday presided over a State Council executive meeting that studied the work on effectively lowering logistics costs in the whole society and reviewed and adopted an action plan on the digital transformation of the manufacturing sector.

The meeting also deployed the implementation of full-cost insurance and income insurance for the three major cereal crops across the country, and reviewed and adopted the regulations on fair competition review.

Efforts should be made to further optimize the freight transportation structure, promote the digital, smart and green development of the logistics sector, and substantially bring down the logistics costs.

Noting that the digital transformation of the manufacturing sector is key to advancing new industrialization and the building of a modernized industrial system, the meeting called for efforts to scale up support for the digital shift of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), optimize public service platforms, and establish a long-term mechanism for boosting the digital transformation of SMEs.

The meeting pointed out that the national coverage of the full-cost insurance and income insurance for the three major cereal crops is conducive to stabilizing farmers' incomes and improving the disaster prevention, reduction and relief capabilities of the country's agricultural sector. It is imperative to strengthen coordination between relative government departments to ensure the timely and full allocation of premium subsidies, and beef up fund supervision to prevent default, retention and misappropriation of subsidies.

To foster a level playing field for all market entities, it is necessary to focus on prominent issues in the market, refine and improve the regulations on fair competition review and break regional barriers and industrial monopolies, according to the meeting.

The meeting also reviewed and adopted the State Council's decision on revising the regulations on the national science and technology awards.