China's central gov't to focus investment on five aspects next year

Although marked achievement has been made through macro-control, some outstanding conflicts hindering the healthy economic development have not be completed cleared, plus, some new problems also popped up, some deep-rooted conflicts and problems are in dire need of solution, said Ma Kai, director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on December 8.

Ma said the country will continue tighten and improve macro-control, but the direction, focus and strength will be changed according to the economic situation.

As Ma said, the pressure imposed by swelling investment demand is still heavy, there are unduly large number of projects under construction and newly started, as well as a strong impulsive in investment expansion; the pressure of price rising is obvious; there is a shortage of coal, power and oil transportation and the conflict of resources restriction is still serious; such phenomenon as inordinate construction of power stations emerge while the "bottleneck" restrictions are being tackled. These indicate that macro-control is in its crucial period in which reversal is likely should the efforts be loosened. It might even make the previous efforts in vain.

In the macro-control next year, the country will stick to controlling the over-increasing investment in fixed assets and prevent a repetition of the inordinate construction and over-expansion in certain industries. Continued efforts should be made to well coordinate policies on industries, credit and land, and to well control the land approval and credit granting; speed of formulating, perfecting and strictly implementing the market access standards on energy consumption, material consumption, environmental protection and safety. Fulfill those already-set control policies, strictly control the rebound of investment in steel and iron, cement, electrolytic aluminum, calcium carbide, coke and ferroalloy. Project clearance should be done seriously. Those should be stopped must be stopped, and those subject to improvement with limited schedule must be improved. The clearance of regulation-violating power stations should also be done seriously and that of development zones should be continued with joint efforts with departments concerned in the next year.

The central government will focus its investment on five aspects: first, ensure the under-construction projects funded by state bonds to be completed as scheduled for them to be beneficial. The projects are mainly those under construction as Qinghai-Tibet Railway, South-North water diversion, projects along Huaihe River, risk-release and fixation in defective reservoirs, drinking water in rural areas, inter-county and rural roads and the harness in sunken mining areas; second, strengthen the infrastructure construction in the agricultural sector and significant the construction of water conservancy projects to support grain production; third, exert more efforts in the projects on basic education, public health system, public security, procuratorate and judiciary departments, ecological construction, resource conservation and cycle economy; fourth, support the key projects on the development of the western region, adjustment and renovation in the northeast old industry belt and the rise of the middle region; five, strengthen infrastructure construction concerning economic safety.

By People's Daily Online