Official Outlines Economic Objectives for Coming Year

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, December 19, 2002

Official Outlines Economic Objectives for Coming Year

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China's economic objectives for the next year include achieving a 10 percent increase in the income of large-scale industries, a minimum 10 percent increase in investment for reconstruction and a 10 percent real increase in retails, said Minister of Economic and Trade Commission Li Rongrong.

Speaking at the annual Economic and Trade Conference, which took place from Monday through Wednesday, Li said reform and regrouping of enterprises are the major tasks for 2003. China willcontinue to nurture giant companies with system improvement and innovation as the priority. The regrouping of electrical power and gold industries will be quickened up.

The reform of collectively-owned sectors will be intensified, and the development of medium- and -small enterprises will be supported. An environment characterized by increasingly fair competition will be created for private investors in financing, taxation and land use, he said.

Li said treasury bonds will continue to be used to support technological innovation, mainly in the application of IT to industries, equipment manufacturing, infrastructure and old industry bases.

Li said modern logistics will be promoted next year by encouraging the development of chainstore groups, applying IT in logistics, and developing E-commerce. Large logistics companies will be encouraged to invest in less-developed western regions andrural areas.

Li also called for greater efforts in economic coordination and control, resource conservation, environmental protection, market rectification and work safety with regard to next year's tasks.

Chinese Vice Premier Li Lanqing and State Councilor Wu Yi sent their congratulations to the conference, saying that they hope both the national and local economic and trade commissions will work more effectively in rectifying and standardizing the market order and in strengthening cooperation with other relevant departments.

Economic Improvement

The official noted that China's economy in 2002 has shown many encouraging changes and clear improvement in growth speed, quality and efficiency.

In the past 11 months, China's large industrial enterprises achieved added value of 2.83 trillion yuan (342 billion US dollars), up 12.4 percent from the same period last year, according to the minister.

Meanwhile, the investment in technological upgrading increased 15.7 percent, the export value of industrial products rose 22.3 percent, and the total sales of consumer goods rose 10 percent.

Li said that the quality of the economic growth continued to improve. In the January-November period, the production-marketing ratio of industrial products reached 97.68 percent, and the profits of large enterprises increased 16.3 percent against a year-on-year 1.1 percentage point drop in the factory price in the first 10 months of the year.

Big strides have also been made in industrial restructuring. So far this year 533 loss-making enterprises have been closed or restructured, writing off bad debts totaling 61.67 billion yuan.

Corporate technological advancement has been further reinforced, with big growth registered in information technology and other high-tech industries, Li said.

Trade industry

China's trade industry has successfully stood the test of its first year after the country's entry of the World Trade Organization, with clear improvements achieved in foreign trade and market construction, said the senior Chinese Official.

Li told the annual national economic and trade conference that this year a number of laws and regulations were promulgated to provide a legal basis for better using foreign capital to rationalize industrial structure.

By the end of November, 304 overseas processing and trade projects had been ratified, with a contracted investment of 1.2 billion US dollars. It is predicted that these projects can bring about an annual export value of 2.1 billion dollars in raw materials and parts.

Li said market construction has also made considerable progress. In the first half of this year, the 30 largest chain stores increased their shops to a total of 6,692, increasing 59.2 percent over the same period of last year, and the aggregate sales volume increased 39.2 percent.

Market Order

China took new steps to improve and standardize the market order in 2002, according to the minister of the State Economic and Trade Commission.

Li said the improvements focused on the cultural, construction, and travel industries, and on dangerous chemicals and oil stations. A group of major problem cases including those involving fake goods, had been checked, with business administration departments alone checking 125 cases involving 15 billion yuan (1.8 billion US dollars) from January to September this year.

Li said a series of policies and laws were issued this year in an effort to eradicate problems in the market economy. The business-centered credit system was established, and information on the quality of goods important to food production could now be collected, inspected, managed and issued systematically. Up to 27 provinces had issued regional laws on meat and other goods.

Enterprises shed 8,494 items of fees this year, involving 34.18billion yuan (4.12 US dollars), he said.

Li said the safety of road transport and mining had been strengthened this year. Major accidents had decreased by 7 percent from the same period last year and the death toll had fallen by 8.8 percent year-on-year.

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