Premier Wen Jiabao said China will persevere in and deepen its reform and opening up in the next five years.

In his explanation to the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee's Proposal on the Eleventh Five-year Program on National Economy and Social Development at the Fifth Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee, which ended last Tuesday, Wen said China's road to a mature socialist market system still faces deep problems.

It requires a stronger resolve to promote reform to make breakthroughs in sectors relating to the overall economic and social situation, said Wen.

China will endeavor to reform the administrative set-up of the government, which he considered the key to deepening reform and improving opening up.

According to him, the emphasis is on transforming government functions and separating their functions from those of enterprises.

The government's functions should focus on economic control, market supervision, social administration and public service while enterprises should perform as the major body of the market. Only in this way could the market rationally allocate resources, and an effective macro-controlling system could be established, he said.

To achieve this goal, more economic and legal measures and less administrative examination and approval should be taken, he said.

Wen went on to say that China will insist on and further improve its basic economic system, keeping public ownership in a dominant role and having diverse forms of ownership develop side by side.

According to him, China will accelerate its reform move to introduce the stockholding system to large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises and improve its modern corporate system, deepen the reform of monopolized industries to realize the diversification of investors and property rights, establish a supervision system for state-owned assets and deepen the reform of collective enterprises.

Wen emphasized putting policies encouraging development of non-public economy into practice to establish legal, policy and market environments favorable for equal competition.

China should also promote reform on fiscal, taxation and finance systems to promote structural economic adjustment, economic growth mode transformation, innovation ability, energy resources efficiency and harmonious development, he said.

According to Wen, China will improve the value added taxation and resources taxation systems and unify the taxation systems of various enterprises.

To advance reform on financing system, said Wen, is a major mission concerning the total situation of reform and development and the economic stability and security of the country.

China will promote reform to introduce the stockholding system to state-owned financing enterprises, deepen reform to policy-lending banks and stably develop medium and small-sized financial enterprises. China will promote the healthy growth of the capital market and improve the financial supervision system to prevent and dissolve financial risks.

China has entered the latter-transition period of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its opening up is facing a more complicated international environment with problems in textile trade, intellectual property and energy resources, said Wen.

China will take the principle of mutual benefits as the basis for developing economic trade relationships with other countries, he said.

In the next five years, China will endeavor to transform its foreign trade growth mode to realize a basic balance between imports and exports, improve the efficiency of foreign investment use and support enterprises to invest overseas in line with international rules when conditions permit, he said.

Moreover, Wen emphasized safeguarding state economic security in foreign cooperation.

Source: Xinhua