Xinhua news agency today broadcast the press release of the December meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. The main purpose of the meeting was to study and arrange next year’s economic work. In fact, it also set the tone for the central economic work conference. Compared with the spirit of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in December last year, we believe that this meeting is more specific, landing and targeted.
First, the tone of next year’s work remains the same. It is still to make progress while maintaining stability, but it is required to be stable, which shows the urgency and seriousness of risk prevention under the new situation, especially the negative effects brought by Evergrande incident. It also shows the necessity of making progress while maintaining stability under the background of increasing downward pressure on the economy.
Second, it emphasizes the sustainability, flexibility and moderation of macro policies. Macroeconomic policies should be sound and effective, and we should continue to implement an active fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy. Active fiscal policies should improve efficiency and pay more attention to accuracy and sustainability. Prudent monetary policy should be flexible and appropriate, and maintain reasonable and sufficient liquidity. At the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee at the end of last year, no specific macro policies were mentioned. We note that the central bank also proposed to create an appropriate monetary and financial environment for high-quality development and supply side structural reform in today’s announcement on reducing the reserve requirement. This is a new formulation, which deserves attention and research.
Third, it talked about implementing the strategy of expanding domestic demand, promoting the sustained recovery of consumption, actively expanding effective investment and enhancing the endogenous driving force of development. Compared with last year, “we should grasp the supply side structural reform, pay attention to the demand side reform, open up the blocking points, supplement the short board, connect all links of production, distribution, circulation and consumption, form a higher level dynamic balance between demand driving supply and supply creating demand, and improve the overall efficiency of the national economic system.” The formulation of is more practical and specific. Since this year, the relevant consumption and investment indicators are not ideal, such as the cumulative year-on-year of fixed asset investment and the year-on-year indicators of the overall level of social consumption. The impact of the epidemic is still lingering, and there is a long way to go to restore consumption and actively expand effective investment.
Fourth, the meeting also talked about micro policies, especially the protection of intellectual property rights.
Fifth, structural policies were put forward. The meeting pointed out that structural policies should focus on unblocking the national economic cycle, improving the core competitiveness of the manufacturing industry and enhancing the resilience of the supply chain. Compared with last year’s “to promote reform and opening up as a whole, strengthen the national strategic scientific and technological force, enhance the independent and controllable ability of the industrial chain and supply chain, and form a strong Chinese market”, it seems more practical.
Sixth, the formulation of the conference on housing issues was more specific. The conference proposed to promote the construction of affordable housing, support the commercial housing market, better meet the reasonable housing needs of buyers, and promote the healthy development and virtuous cycle of the real estate industry. Last year, it was only proposed in a more general way to promote the steady and healthy development of the real estate market,
Seventh, it was newly proposed at the meeting that we should speed up the implementation of science and technology policies, continue to tackle key core technologies, strengthen national strategic science and technology forces, strengthen the dominant position of enterprises in innovation, and realize a virtuous cycle of science and technology, industry and finance. The reform and opening-up policy should enhance the driving force for development, effectively promote major regional strategies and coordinated regional development strategies, pay close attention to the pilot of comprehensive reform of market-oriented allocation of factors, and expand high-level opening-up.
Eighth, the meeting talked about the need for social policies to take into account the bottom line of people’s livelihood, implement the employment priority policy, promote the implementation and effectiveness of the new fertility policy, promote the national overall planning of basic old-age insurance, and improve the system of providing basic public services in permanent residence. This was not specifically mentioned at last year’s meeting.
