Profile: "Always bearing the people in mind" -- Zhang Dejiang (5)

（People's Daily Online）  08:31, December 25, 2012

Zhang has attached great importance to the development of the private economy and has a deep understanding of its role in propelling a region's development.

"Numerous practices have proven that where there is a robust private economy, there is a developed economy and well-off people," he has said.

In Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces, the private sector accounted for more than 70 percent of the economies in both provinces during his tenure as Party secretary there.

"The private economy will grow vigorously as long as we offer it suitable soil and sunshine," he has said.

When the global economy experienced a slowdown, Zhang sharply perceived the crisis private businesses would face. While participating in a panel discussion of the Zhejiang delegation to the annual session of the National People's Congress in March this year, Zhang said, "Private capital is like water, and the real economy is like cropland. It is better to dig a well to bring benefits to both sides than just allow the water to flow beneath the cropland." He reminded Zhejiang's business people not to be beguiled by short-term profits but keep on operating physical businesses well.

Not long after he arrived in Chongqing as the city's Party secretary in March, he called a special meeting on boosting the private economy. He put forward the goal that the private economy should contribute 65 percent to the city's GDP by 2015. He also frequently solicited the opinions of representatives of private businesses from different sectors regarding how the government could serve them better, which won the applause of those invited.