Xi urges grasp of China’s strategic foci

Beijing: President Xi Jinping has ordered officials to acquire an accurate understanding of the country’s strategic foci for economic and social development in the coming five years.

He also demanded concrete action to turn the blueprint for the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020) into reality, Xinhua cited a statement as saying on Saturday.

Xi made the remarks during the 30th group study by the Political Bureau members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Friday.

“A clear grasp of China’s strategic focuses is pivotal to a good start of the 13th Five-Year Plan period and to the completion of a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way,” said Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

“The government work will continue to centre on economic development and we should strive for a higher-quality, more efficient, fairer and more sustainable growth,” he said.

At the same time, China will push for political, cultural, social and environmental progresses, according to Xi.

The country will follow the “Four Comprehensive” strategy — comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society; comprehensively deepening reform; comprehensively advancing the rule of law; and comprehensively strictly governing the CPC.

“The ‘Four Comprehensives’ is the Party and the nation’s overarching strategy for long-term development,” Xi said, calling for better coordination among the four aspects.

Xi asked officials to uphold and implement the newly identified development concepts — innovation, coordination, green development, opening up and sharing — to support economic and social development.

“Any thoughts or actions against the five concepts must be corrected immediately,” he ordered.

Macro policies should be stable, industrial policies should be accurate, micro policies must be flexible, reforms should be concrete and social policies should serve as a safety net for the people, he said.

“Supply-side structural reform will be a key development strategy in the 13th Five-Year Plan period,” said Xi, calling for efforts to slash overcapacity, cut stockpiles, reduce leverage, lower costs of doing business and fix shortcomings.

“Poverty is a prominent shortcoming, and we should make all-out efforts to ensure that all impoverished farmers will be lifted out of poverty by 2020,” said the president.

Xi also asked officials at all levels to detect latent risks during development, and ward off or mitigate them.
IANS