BEIJING, March 24 -- Senior officials from the Chinese central government's departments came under the spotlight at the ongoing China Development Forum 2019 for elaborating on China's reform and opening-up.
Here are the key takeaways from some of their speeches made on Sunday.
-- Tax cuts for the real economy
To support the development of the real economy, Minister of Finance Liu Kun said that the government insisted on adding corporate profitability and multiplying market vitality by reducing government revenue.
He said that market players, especially small and micro business, would have a clear sense of tax cuts and fee reduction this year, and that the big job of tax cuts would be well done.
The total reduction is expected to reach nearly 2 trillion yuan (about 298 billion U.S. dollars) this year.
-- Broader opening-up of financial sector
Central bank governor Yi Gang stressed five aspects concerning the opening-up of China's financial sector: opening up the financial service sector; combining the opening-up of financial market with the reform of the RMB exchange rate formation mechanism in a coordinated manner; fully implementing the pre-establishment national treatment plus negative list management system; improving the rules concerning financial market opening-up and enhancing institutional and systematic openness; improving business environment and optimizing financial regulation.
Wang Zhaoxing, deputy chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said that the financial supply-side structural reform would be advanced to increase the effective supply of financial products and enhance the ability of financial services to support the real economy.
Fang Xinghai, deputy chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said the country's securities industry had made a lot of preparations for further opening up.
"The financial industry has a lot of potential, and the opening-up can be quickened," he said.
--Growing domestic consumption
Ning Jizhe, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, mentioned a three-year action plan to increase household incomes and consumption power. He said that new measures would be taken to boost the consumption of automobiles, home appliances and other popular goods.
According to him, the country will accelerate the development of tourism, culture, health, sports, education, childcare, old-age care and domestic services to unleash the potential for service consumption.
--Institutional openness
Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming said China will continue to build new heights of institutional openness, including the establishment of pilot free trade zones, the exploration of free trade ports with Chinese characteristics and the building of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area; implementing the negative list management system and further shortening the negative list; making its business environment more law-based, international and convenient and taking an active part in global economic governance.
--Green technical innovation
Zhao Yingmin, vice minister of ecology and environment, said China will step up green technological innovation, strengthen research and development(R&D) of green technologies in manufacturing, accelerate the green transformation of traditional industries such as steel and non-ferrous metals, facilitate the R&D and application of cleaner production technologies and products, and constantly explore new possibilities of integrating green development with novel technology such as Internet+, artificial intelligence and big data.