Meeting finds window of opportunity amid continuing economic recovery

A key Party meeting on Friday underscored the need to strive to attain growth at a more balanced level amid the ongoing economic recovery while enabling the prudent monetary policy to shore up support to the real economy, key sectors and weak areas.

The meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee emphasized that the current period of lesser pressure on economic growth will be a window of opportunity to promote steady and sound growth and advance supply-side structural reform while economic recovery is still uneven and its foundation not yet solid.

The meeting, presided over by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, reiterated the need to maintain the consistency, stability and sustainability of macro policies, avoid sharp U-turns and ensure that policies are well-timed, appropriate and effective, in order to stabilize expectations and keep major economic indicators within a proper range.

The proactive fiscal policy must be well implemented so as to better ensure grassroots authorities can guarantee basic living standards of the public, the delivery of paychecks and the authorities' normal functioning. The prudent monetary policy, meanwhile, must ensure liquidity at a proper and adequate level, with steps to ensure the exchange rate of the yuan stays at a reasonable, balanced level, according to a summary of the meeting.

The meeting urged steps to lead the optimization and upgrading of industries and strengthen the nation's strategic force in science and technology, saying that the development of the industrial internet must be promoted and the digitalization of industries accelerated.

The nation should move forward with work related to the peaking of carbon emissions and attaining of carbon neutrality in an orderly manner, with proactive steps to develop new energy, the summary said.

It is important to promote a quicker rebound of domestic demand and enable investment into the manufacturing sector and private investment to recover as soon as possible, with sound efforts made to ensure the land supply for national major programs, it added.

The country will devise an action plan on promoting common prosperity and leverage the across-the-board increase of household incomes in urban and rural areas to shore up the domestic demand, the summary said.

Meeting participants highlighted the need to prevent and diffuse economic and financial risks, saying that the nation will establish local response mechanisms to deal with fiscal and financial risks, and leading officials from different areas will be put in charge.

They also pledged to strengthen and improve oversight of the platform economy and promote fair competition.

The outcomes of poverty alleviation must be consolidated and expanded, with measures to improve the living standards of groups that have been lifted out of poverty during the implementation of the rural vitalization strategy, they said.

The meeting also reiterated a policy stance that housing is for living in, not for speculation, pledging to increase the supply of government-subsidized rental housing and shared ownership housing and rein in the speculation on housing prices in school districts.

It also urged unrelenting steps in COVID-19 containment, with sound measures put in place to curb the spread of the pandemic from overseas, prevent a possible domestic rebound in cases and step up vaccination efforts.

The meeting also heard a report on a survey of national land resources and reviewed a regulation on the organization work of the CPC.