Remarks at the National Teleconference on Deepening Reforms to Streamline Administration and Delegate Power, Improve Regulation, and Upgrade Services to Foster and Stimulate the Vitality of Market Entities

by Li Keqiang

(June 2, 2021)

This conference is an important annual meeting convened by the State Council. Its main tasks are: guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, to comprehensively implement the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the second, third, fourth, and fifth plenary sessions of the 19th CPC Central Committee; to thoroughly implement the arrangements made by the Central Economic Work Conference and the Government Work Report; to fulfill the requirements of basing our efforts on the new development stage, implementing the new development philosophy, fostering a new development paradigm, and promoting high-quality development; to summarize the work over the past year in deepening the "streamlining administration and delegating power" reforms, optimizing the business environment, and fostering and stimulating market entity vitality; and to deploy the key tasks for the next phase of continuously advancing the "streamlining administration and delegating power" reforms in an integrated manner.

First, by directly addressing the needs of market entities and innovatively implementing macro policies combined with reforms to streamline administration and delegate power, improve regulation, and upgrade services, we have achieved notable results.

In 2020, facing multiple severe shocks, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, we took a coordinated approach to Covid-19 response and economic and social development. We acted swiftly and decisively while maintaining strategic resolve, refraining from adopting a deluge of strong stimulus policies. Instead, we responded to the needs of market entities through creative macro policy implementation, which was integrated with reforms to streamline government administration, delegate power, improve regulation, and upgrade services. By both helping enterprises to ease difficulties and boosting their vitality, we effectively promoted rapid economic recovery and growth.

(1) Applying the principles and methods of "streamlining administration, delegating powers, and improving regulation and services" reform in the innovative implementation of macro policies to help market entities overcome difficulties. The COVID-19 pandemic directly impacted a vast number of market entities, severely affecting employment and basic livelihoods. Building on the "Six Priorities," we explicitly proposed the "Six Stabilizes," prioritizing the protection of market entities to safeguard jobs and livelihoods. Fiscal, monetary, and employment policies were all centered around market entities, closely linking macro policies with micro entities to ensure direct, practical, precise, and efficient measures, effectively "watering and fertilizing at the roots." Throughout the year, over 2.6 trillion yuan in tax and fee reductions were provided to market entities, while the financial system was encouraged to reasonably concede 1.5 trillion yuan in profits to the real economy. Businesses widely reported that tax and fee reductions were the most direct, effective, and fair measures, playing a crucial role in overcoming challenges. We also innovatively established a direct fund transfer mechanism for new central fiscal funds, ensuring funds reached the grassroots level directly, significantly reducing intermediate links. Provincial finance departments acted merely as "pass-through custodians" for new central fiscal resources and avoided being "hands-off" with local finances, swiftly supplementing county-level resources to benefit businesses and the public. Previously, it took an average of over 120 days for central fiscal funds to be distributed layer by layer to the grassroots, but last year, the fastest transfer took only seven days, delivering policy benefits to market entities at unprecedented speed. To manage and utilize these direct funds effectively, we strengthened full-chain monitoring to prevent issues like fund misappropriation or fraud. Audit results indicate that the use of direct funds was well-managed. Additionally, we employed monetary policy tools to precisely and swiftly support micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and individual businesses. It can be said that addressing the urgent needs of market entities through relief measures and establishing direct mechanisms and tools represents an innovative application of "streamlining administration, delegating powers, and improving regulation and services" reform in the fiscal and financial sectors, serving as both an "accelerator" for macro policy implementation and a "multiplier" for its effectiveness.

(2) Deepening "streamlining administration, delegating powers, and improving regulation and services" reform with greater intensity to meet the pressing needs of market entities. The "streamlining administration, delegating powers, and improving regulation and services" reform is a key component of comprehensive deepening reforms and a major lever for transforming government functions. Compared to fiscal and monetary policies, this reform costs little or nothing yet achieves multiplied effects in invigorating market entities. Simple administration facilitates execution; complex administration hinders it. We rigorously implemented the Regulations on Optimizing the Business Environment, shortened the negative list for market access, reduced time required for business licensing, customs clearance, electricity access, and construction project approvals, and streamlined and standardized fees affecting businesses, thereby lowering institutional transaction costs. Simple administration eases oversight; complex administration breeds corruption. We adhered to a balanced approach of delegating powers while strengthening oversight, enhancing supervision in critical areas such as food, drugs, and vaccines to firmly uphold quality and safety standards. We intensified efforts against monopolies and unfair competition, advanced innovative regulatory approaches like "random inspections and public disclosure" and "internet plus regulation," effectively safeguarding fair competition. Simple administration benefits the people; complex administration burdens them. We promoted more government services to be handled online or via mobile apps, maximizing convenience for businesses and the public. These reforms targeted critical points and were transparent and straightforward, proving as effective in stimulating market vitality as fiscal and monetary policy investments—truly an efficient form of "soft investment."

The reforms to streamline administration and delegate power, improve regulation, and upgrade services played an important role in the fight against Covid-19. At the height of the epidemic last year, relevant government departments quickly launched emergency approval procedures for epidemic control and medical supplies and cracked down on substandard products and illegal business operations. This rapidly expanded the production capacity of face masks, protective suits and other supplies. Daily output of face masks stood at only six million at the beginning of the epidemic, but it was soon boosted and now exceeds 1.2 billion. Over the years, the government has deepened reforms related to streamlining administration and delegating power, improving regulation, and upgrading services, and this has helped new business forms and models to grow fast. Contactless services like online shopping, working from home, and online education and medical consultation have made life, work and study more convenient. These efforts have contributed to epidemic control and consolidated gains made in our response to Covid-19, thus helping to maintain normal order in work and life.

All regions actively explored reforms to streamline administration, delegate power, and improve regulation and services, with a common focus on improving the business environment. Many areas became champions in specific fields, introducing innovative measures such as the "one permit for one business" system, the "no application needed to enjoy benefits" policy for enterprises, and risk-based classification for regulation, which have been widely welcomed by businesses and the public.

(3) Helping enterprises overcome difficulties while invigorating them has effectively preserved and fostered a large number of market entities. Market entities are a strong pillar for stabilizing employment and the economy's foundation. Despite significant challenges last year, although the number of newly established market entities dropped sharply in the first quarter, it still reached over 25 million for the entire year, showing growth against the trend. In the first four months of this year, rapid growth continued, with nearly 9 million new market entities registered. Preserving market entities means stabilizing employment. Last year, 11.86 million new urban jobs were created, and the urban surveyed unemployment rate dropped from a peak of 6.2% in February to 5.2% by year-end. With employment comes income—last year, the national per capita disposable income grew by 2.1% in real terms, keeping pace with economic growth. Newly established market entities quickly became a significant source of tax revenue. In 2013, newly registered tax-paying market entities contributed 160 billion yuan in taxes that year; by last year, the cumulative tax contributions from newly registered tax-paying market entities in recent years reached 3.82 trillion yuan, exceeding one-quarter of the national tax revenue last year and surpassing the scale of new tax and fee cuts implemented last year. Facing multiple severe shocks, hundreds of millions of market entities demonstrated remarkable resilience. Practice has proven that market entities are a vital force for economic and social development, and the people are the true heroes.

Since the beginning of this year, China’s economy has continued to steadily recover and improve , but the domestic and international landscape remains complex and challenging. The global pandemic is still ongoing, the prices of commodities are rising, and inflationary expectations are on the increase. China’s economic recovery is uneven, and market entities, especially micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and self-employed individuals, still face many difficulties. Employment pressure remains high—college graduates alone total 9.09 million this year. Although the surveyed urban unemployment rate nationwide dropped to 5.1 percent in April, it still exceeded six percent in eight provinces. We will continue to focus on the concerns of market entities, implement macro policies in a scientific and targeted way, and ensure the regular mechanisms and instruments for directly allocating fiscal funds and implementing monetary policy are carried out effectively. At the same time, we will advance major reforms such as those designed to streamline administration and delegate power, improve regulation, and upgrade services, help market entities further recover their strength and boost economic growth momentum, keep the economy performing within the appropriate range, and lay a solid foundation for future development. Given that economic growth is steadily rebounding, we have discontinued some provisional emergency policies this year. However, we have not put the brakes on policy support all of a sudden. Instead, we have adopted new offsetting measures such as structural tax cuts and increased inclusive financial support for MSMEs and self-employed individuals. On the whole, implementation of these policies has been effective, but some enterprises report that they have not benefited from them due to factors such as a lack of awareness of the policies and cumbersome application procedures. We need to further strengthen our service mindset, step up efforts to publicize policies, improve mechanisms for policy implementation, and make good use of modern IT to ensure that policies seek out those in need of them, rather than the other way around. In this way, we will ensure that all enterprises entitled to policy support benefit from it and receive it without delay.

Second, focus on cultivating and expanding market entities to further stimulate market vitality and social creativity

The foundation of economic development lies in market entities. To develop a socialist market economy, we must continuously cultivate and stimulate the vitality of market entities. No matter what difficulties and challenges we face, as long as we preserve market entities—"keep the green hills intact"—and strive to make them more dynamic—"ensure the hills remain green"—China's economic development will have a constant source of momentum.

(1) The growth and expansion of market entities have significantly propelled the establishment and improvement of the socialist market economy system. During the planned economy era, the allocation of production factors and economic activities largely depended on state planning. Following the reform and opening-up, the implementation of the household contract responsibility system transformed rural households into independent production and operation entities, allowing surplus rural labor to seek employment elsewhere. This quickly resolved the issue of food scarcity and gradually improved living standards through productive development. Policies encouraging returned urban educated youth to pursue self-employment and supporting the development of individual businesses and private enterprises rapidly integrated them into the core of China's economy. State-owned enterprises first underwent decentralization of operational autonomy, the adoption of economic responsibility systems, and the replacement of profit delivery with taxes, before advancing toward the modern enterprise system, evolving into dynamic market entities through reform. The process of opening up also saw the entry of numerous foreign-funded enterprises, bringing capital, technology, and management expertise, fostering mutual growth through competition and collaboration with domestic firms. Market entities form the micro-foundation of a market economy. In a sense, the development of China's socialist market economy has also been a process of continuous strengthening of market entities.

In recent years, we have focused on fostering market entities, stimulating market vitality and social creativity. We have continued to deepen key reforms such as "streamlining administration, delegating power, improving regulation, and upgrading services," and promoted mass entrepreneurship and innovation. These efforts have met the needs of improving the socialist market economy system and aligned with the public's demand for employment and entrepreneurship. The "streamlining administration, delegating power, improving regulation, and upgrading services" reform is market-oriented, aiming to let the market play a decisive role in resource allocation while ensuring the government plays its role better. At the beginning of the last government's term, we took streamlining administration and delegating power as the "first move" in transforming government functions and addressing downward economic pressure. We continuously advanced reforms in the business system and others, striving to unshackle and ease burdens for market entities, fostering fertile ground for their growth and development, while strengthening fair and impartial oversight during and after processes. Through persistent efforts over the years, we have greatly facilitated business operations and entrepreneurship for enterprises and the public. A notable achievement is the establishment of market entities amid the continuous development and improvement of the market economy system. Recently, the State Council executive meeting adopted the Regulations on the Registration of Market Entities. According to the regulations, market entities include various types of enterprises, individual businesses, and farmers' cooperatives. Statistics show that since 2013, an average of over 10 million new market entities have been added annually, with the total number of registered market entities increasing from nearly 55 million in 2012 to 143 million by April this year, a 1.6-fold increase. Among them, enterprises rose from over 13 million to more than 45 million, individual businesses from over 40 million to nearly 96 million, and farmers' cooperatives from nearly 700,000 to over 2.2 million. This aligns with the rapid growth of market entities reflected in the Fourth National Economic Census. Of course, evaluating market entities should not only consider quantity but also their activity levels. Under market economy conditions, it is normal for market entities to "emerge and exit." Currently, the activity level stands at roughly 70%.

(2) Over 100 million market entities are a crucial force driving economic and social development. Through years of development, not only has the number of market entities in China increased with growing diversity, but their competitiveness and strength have also continuously improved, playing an increasingly significant role.

Market entities serve as the "pillar" for stabilizing and expanding employment. Practice has shown that relying solely on fiscal expenditures cannot create substantial employment opportunities sustainably. Instead, market entities must take the "leading role" in maintaining and increasing jobs. In recent years, China's urban job creation has consistently exceeded 13 million annually, with the vast majority being absorbed by market entities. Relevant estimates indicate that each market entity supports 8-10 jobs on average. As long as the actual operating market entities remain above 100 million, the employment of China's massive workforce can remain stable and relatively sufficient. Particularly, the vast numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and individual businesses act as "large containers" for employment, providing 85% of urban jobs and substantially supporting 440 million urban workers and nearly 290 million migrant workers.

The people are the source of our clothing and food, and market entities are an inexhaustible fountain of wealth creation and a major provider of tax revenue. In recent years, we have made tax and fee reductions a powerful measure for meeting challenges and maintaining stable economic development. We have combined institutional measures with temporary policies, expanded the VAT reform program from pilot projects to all industries, and continued to carry out large-scale tax and fee reductions. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), the total amount of new tax and fee reductions reached 7.6 trillion yuan. This increased the pressure on government finances in the short term, but in the long term, it is like "releasing water to breed fish." It has cultivated tax sources, expanded the tax base, contributed to greater tax revenues, and created a virtuous cycle—more water breeds more fish. Market entities newly registered for taxation during the 13th Five-Year Plan period paid over 7.8 trillion yuan in taxes in the past five years, which is even greater than the total amount of new tax and fee reductions during the same period.

The development of market entities has improved the economic structure, strengthened new growth drivers, and facilitated unimpeded flows in the economy. In recent years, the number of market entities has increased by tens of millions each year, bringing about a large amount of new and effective supply as well as investment and consumption demand. Micro and small businesses and self-employed individuals have flourished in particular. As the "capillaries" of industrial and supply chains and the "nerve endings" of the market, they have played a unique and important role in improving China's industrial and market systems. It is also important to note that the development of market entities has boosted scientific and technological innovation and accelerated the shift of growth drivers. At present, the added value of the "three new" economy (new industries, new business forms and models) accounts for over 16% of China's GDP, and many traditional industries have reshaped their R&D and production and business models with the help of new technologies and business forms. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the number of high-tech enterprises in China increased from 76,000 to 275,000. According to statistics from a foreign institution, among the more than 500 "unicorn" enterprises worldwide last year, 112 were from China's mainland, ranking second globally. The rapid development of Internet Plus and other new business forms has not only increased the efficiency of resource allocation and extended quality education and medical resources to rural and remote areas, but also expanded market space. From January to April this year, online retail sales accounted for over 22% of the country's total retail sales of consumer goods. Last year, exports through cross-border e-commerce management platforms increased by more than 150% year-on-year, opening up new market channels for industrial and agricultural production and foreign trade.

The condition of market entities is also crucial to the vitality and sustainability of regional development. Practice shows that regions with thriving market entities experience better economic growth and faster improvements in people's livelihoods. In recent years, a significant factor contributing to regional development disparities in China has been the varying conditions of market entities. In some areas, not only are new market entities scarce, but existing ones are even relocating, leading to a lack of economic dynamism and negative impacts on employment and income for residents. This reflects the disparities in the business environment across different regions. Relevant regions must prioritize improving the business environment, transforming gaps into potential, and strive to achieve new successes in nurturing and expanding market entities, thereby enhancing regional development competitiveness and overall strength.

At present, market entities still face many constraints in starting and growing businesses. We must fully deepen reforms, continue to address their pain points and difficulties, and advance reforms to streamline administration, delegate power, improve regulation, and upgrade services. We will work to optimize the whole chain of approval procedures, ensure impartial regulation across the board, and improve services throughout the entire business cycle, in order to boost market vitality and ensure fair competition, thereby giving rise to more new market entities. The government needs to improve public services and make greater efforts in “two provisions.” The first is to fully mobilize the initiative of enterprises, public institutions, and social forces to expand the supply of water, electricity, gas, and heating, as well as transport, telecom, and other infrastructure services, and improve their quality and performance, so as to create favorable conditions for market entities to operate and grow. The second is to ensure basic living standards for our people. We will do everything within our capacity and do our utmost to strengthen compulsory education, basic medical services, and basic housing, improve unemployment benefits and basic benefits for flexible employment, and gradually raise overall benefit levels. By strengthening the social safety net and removing worries about the future, we will encourage people to start businesses and work hard, and help market entities pursue innovation-driven development.

III. Addressing the Concerns of Market Entities and Continuously Building a Market-Oriented, Law-Based, and Internationalized Business Environment

The business environment represents the institutional conditions faced by market entities and serves as the foundation for their survival and development. A favorable business environment is both productive and competitive. The reform of "streamlining administration, delegating powers, improving regulation, and upgrading services" is a critical step toward optimizing the business environment. To deepen this reform, we must advance market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized efforts holistically, aiming to create a first-class business environment that fosters large enterprises to "reach for the sky" and small ones to "spread across the land," thereby continuously unleashing and developing productive forces.

(1) Striving to create a market-oriented business environment. We will vigorously streamline administration, uphold fair and impartial regulation, and continuously improve services to further unleash vitality, ensure fairness, and enhance efficiency.

We will continue to deepen reforms of the administrative approval system. This year, we will focus on reducing the number of procedures, materials, time, and costs involved in obtaining business-related approvals and promptly compile and publish the list of items subject to administrative licensing. Currently, there are still many market access barriers in some sectors, and some market entities are unable to exit as they should due to difficulties encountered when deregistering. We will deepen the separation of business licenses and permits, with emphasis on reducing and consolidating permits required after obtaining a business license. This will make market access more convenient, especially for manufacturing and general service providers. We will improve inter-departmental coordination to expand the scope of simple deregistration procedures and make it easier for market entities to exit, thus facilitating the replacement of old growth drivers with new ones. We will advance reforms of the approval system for investment and development projects, streamline and integrate approval procedures, and promote practices such as multi-plan integration, joint review of multiple blueprints, and joint inspection upon completion. Where conditions permit, we will adopt a notification-commitment mechanism to ensure the early launch and operation of projects. We will dynamically adjust the national catalog of professional qualifications to further lower the threshold for employment and business startups.

To foster more dynamic innovation and development among market entities. We will focus on improving policies, removing barriers, and building platforms to strengthen the role of enterprises as key players in innovation. We will make good use of inclusive policies such as tax incentives to encourage enterprises to engage in R&D and innovation. We will increase support for mass entrepreneurship and innovation, promote collaborative innovation among businesses of all sizes, pool wisdom and strength from all sides, and improve innovation efficiency.

To effectively uphold fair competition in the market order. Fair competition is an inherent requirement of a market economy. We must adhere unwaveringly to the policy of maintaining the public sector’s dominant role while encouraging the development of the non-public sector, and treat all types of market entities, including state-owned, private, and foreign-funded enterprises, as equals. The state supports the development of the platform economy, but monopolistic and unfair competition practices must be regulated and addressed. Monopolies hinder fair competition, stifle innovation and vitality, and run counter to the development of a market economy. Opposing monopolies and unfair competition is conducive to the healthy development of the platform economy and helps protect the legitimate rights, interests, and development space of all market entities, especially micro, small, and medium enterprises as well as self-employed individuals. We will work to rectify unfair practices such as local protectionism, industry monopolies, and market fragmentation.

We need to make innovations in and improve market regulation. As I have stressed on many occasions, delegating power is not about the government washing its hands of relevant matters, and reducing power does not mean reducing regulatory responsibilities. We must maintain a good balance between delegating power and tightening regulation, and ensure that effective regulation serves as a necessary guarantee for streamlining administration and delegating power. In the reforms to streamline administration, delegate power, and improve government services over the past few years, the manufacturing and general service sectors—areas that do not involve safety issues—have been the main targets of power delegation. In sectors and areas concerning workplace safety and people’s health and lives, however, we have always acted with the utmost caution, stressing the need for full and rigorous oversight without any letup. In the next stage of our work, we must continue to ensure that all necessary checks are conducted at every juncture to guarantee quality and safety. We need to refine regulatory rules, adopt new regulatory approaches, and strengthen in-process and post-implementation oversight. We will intensify efforts to advance reforms including the random inspection and public release system, cross-departmental comprehensive regulation, internet-based regulation, and credit risk-based categorization in regulation, so as to make oversight more targeted and effective. Regarding regulatory shortcomings in some sectors, we need to clarify basic duties, strengthen accountability, and further address these problems. Moreover, we need to integrate regulation into services, pay more heed to the legitimate concerns of businesses, and increase support to them, so as to enable market entities to grow with peace of mind and to achieve greater development.

We will further improve government services. With 490 million people in China now living in places where they are not registered and over 120 million of them living in other provinces, we will continue to make more government services accessible within individual provinces or across provinces to meet the needs of these people on the move. We will standardize and facilitate government services, make good use of government service platforms, expand the use of electronic licenses and certificates and ensure their mutual recognition nationwide, and provide more government services online, on mobile devices, or in a one-stop manner. We will continue to treat issues vital to businesses and people’s lives as matters of great importance to the government. This year, we will focus on resolving difficulties in getting medical expenses incurred in other places reimbursed, having motor vehicles inspected, and obtaining notarization services. We will ensure that businesses are required to submit regular information no more than once, and we will complete the consolidation of local government service hotlines and helplines. In short, we will employ institutional and technological means to ensure government services are provided in accordance with regulations, without people having to pull strings to get things done.

(2) Efforts will be made to foster a law-based business environment. A market economy is also an economy governed by law. We must exercise administration in accordance with the law and create a stable, fair, transparent, and predictable environment for market entities.

We will establish and refine a legal framework for the business environment. Good laws are essential for good governance. The Regulations on Improving the Business Environment have been fully implemented, and the Regulations on the Administration of Market Entity Registration will soon be released. We must ensure these regulations are fully and effectively enforced. All localities and government departments should continue to improve the enactment, revision, repeal, and interpretation of laws and regulations concerning the business environment, and institutionalize proven effective practices. At present, priority should be given to improving laws and regulations in areas such as administrative approval and licensing, administrative fees, government services, and secure data sharing.

It is essential to protect the property rights and legitimate interests of all types of market entities in accordance with the law. The property rights protection system must be improved to provide comprehensive protection for all types of property rights in line with legal provisions. Strict enforcement of punitive damages for intellectual property infringements should be implemented to address issues such as low costs for infringement and high costs for rights protection. Governments must take the lead in honoring commitments and keeping promises. All regions should review the commitments made by the government to enterprises in accordance with laws and regulations, resolve unfulfilled promises within a set timeframe, and compensate enterprises for any losses incurred due to government breaches of trust in accordance with the law. There must be no tolerance for "new officials neglecting old obligations."

Law enforcement must be strictly standardized, impartial, and conducted with civility. Non-standard law enforcement not only undermines market confidence but also damages government credibility and social fairness and justice. Relevant departments should expedite research on standardizing administrative discretion, correcting behaviors such as lax enforcement, oversimplified and heavy-handed actions, and disproportionate penalties, thereby improving the quality of law enforcement. Efforts should be made to eliminate arbitrary fees, fines, and apportionments at the source, and any fines established in violation of statutory authority and procedures must be abolished.

(3) We should focus on building an internationalized business environment. This is not only an important way to enhance China's level of opening up but also an effective measure to address the increasingly complex international situation. Although economic globalization has encountered short-term setbacks, it remains an irreversible historical trend in the long run. Unilateralism and protectionism are neither viable nor sustainable. China's economy has already deeply integrated into the global system, and with the in-depth development of "Internet Plus," every city, even every community or village, could potentially connect with the international market. It is impossible to operate behind closed doors, and market entities cannot rely on government protection for their future. We must uphold the Chinese spirit of perseverance and dare to compete in the international market, treating the domestic market as part of the global competition. No matter how the international environment changes, we must steadfastly expand opening up, make better use of both domestic and international markets and resources, and forge new advantages in international cooperation and competition.

We should further align with relevant international rules. For global market entities, a better business environment makes a market more attractive and competitive internationally. In recent years, we have continued to improve the business environment by benchmarking against international best practices, leading to a significant rise in China’s global ranking. However, there are still gaps between China and developed economies in terms of management systems and rules in certain fields. As China has formally signed to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), we should seize this opportunity to adopt higher-standard rules in trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, intellectual property protection, e-commerce, and government procurement. We should better leverage the pioneering role of pilot free trade zones in innovation and take bigger steps in institutional opening up. We must also maintain the stability of industrial and supply chains and safeguard national security in the process of opening up.

Efforts should be made to further enhance the management and services for foreign investment. We will improve the system for promoting and serving foreign investment, fully implement the Foreign Investment Law and its supporting regulations, and refine the system of pre-establishment national treatment plus a negative list to ensure that foreign-funded enterprises have equal access, as required by law, to sectors that are open to them. We will make China a highly attractive destination for foreign investment over the long haul. In addition, we will adopt internationally competitive systems for attracting and employing talent and make it easier for high-caliber foreign professionals to work and start businesses in China.

We will further improve the environment for foreign trade development. We will continue to reduce the operating costs for foreign trade enterprises, regulate port fees, advance the development of the single window system for international trade, and facilitate unimpeded international logistics. We will scale up support for small and medium foreign trade enterprises in terms of credit and insurance, support the development of overseas warehouses, speed up efforts to align relevant standards with advanced international levels, and help enterprises to explore international markets.

Finally, I want to stress that the reforms to streamline administration, delegate power, and improve government services are vital to economic and social development and people’s wellbeing, and represent a revolution of the government on itself. This meeting marks the ninth consecutive year that we have held a nationwide videoconference to promote the reforms. All localities and government departments must enhance their sense of responsibility and make solid efforts to deliver results in the reforms. We should have the courage to make tough reforms in the interests of the Party and the country and the fundamental wellbeing of the people, and be ready to forgo sectional and departmental interests and take on tough issues. We should strengthen planning and coordination in advancing the reforms. Since the reforms constitute a systematic project in which the three aspects of streamlining administration, delegating power, and improving government services are complementary and mutually reinforcing, we need to delegate power where necessary, strengthen regulation where necessary, and effectively perform government service functions so as to improve the overall efficacy of the reforms. We should give full play to the initiative of both the central and local governments. Relevant departments should step up guidance and supervision for local governments, promptly sum up and share best practices, commend and encourage localities and departments that are bold in pursuing reforms, and urge those that are slow in advancing reforms or fail to implement policies to make corrections. Local governments and primary-level departments should continue to take the initiative and conduct explorations based on actual conditions, and take bold moves to make the reforms a success. We should standardize the evaluation of the business environment, use the actual experience of market entities and the people as the main basis for evaluation, guard against pointless formalities, and prevent adding burdens to local governments and market entities.

Currently, the entire Party is engaged in the study and education of Party history. All regions and departments should take this as a driving force and seize the opportunity presented by the "I Do Practical Things for the People" campaign to translate learning outcomes into tangible results in deepening reforms to streamline administration, delegate powers, and improve government services. They should actively address practical issues and solve difficulties for market entities and the people.

Deepening the reforms to streamline administration, delegate power, improve regulation, and upgrade services, further stimulating market vitality and social creativity, and creating a market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized business environment are tasks of great responsibility and arduousness. We must rally even more closely around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, follow the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, strengthen the "Four Consciousnesses," uphold the "Four Confidences," and achieve the "Two Upholds." In accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, we must strive with vigor, work with innovation, continue to advance key reforms such as "streamlining administration, delegating power, improving regulation, and upgrading services," diligently carry out all tasks related to economic and social development, strive to accomplish the annual goals and tasks, and celebrate the centenary of the Communist Party of China with outstanding achievements.