IV. Balancing Steady Economic Growth and Structural Improvement

Steady growth and structural adjustment complement each other. We must work hard to ensure that the economy performs within an appropriate range while promoting economic transformation and upgrading, and maintaining sustainable economic growth.

We will move faster to foster growth areas of consumption.

We will encourage private consumption and curb spending on official overseas visits, official vehicles, and official hospitality. We will promote consumption in elderly care, domestic services, and health services, help strengthen spending oil information goods and services, raise consumer spending on leisure and tourism, give impetus to green consumption, keep housing consumption stable, and encourage people to spend more on education, culture, and sports.

We will press ahead with the nationwide project to deliver telecoms, radio, television, and Internet service over a single broadband connection, accelerate the development of fiber-optic networks, significantly increase broadband speeds, develop logistics and express delivery services, and ensure that new forms of Internet-based spending, which combine online-offline activities, come to thrive.

We will strengthen monitoring, tracking, and recall systems to ensure the safety and quality of consumer goods, severely punish the production and sale of counterfeit and shoddy goods, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. In expanding consumption, we need to ensure every drop of spending builds to create a mighty river, so that the potential contained in an ocean of private consumers will be channeled into a powerful force driving economic growth.

We will increase effective investment in public goods.

We will ensure that the projects set out in the 12th Five-Year Plan are completed. We will launch a number of major new projects, including:

■ projects for rebuilding rundown urban areas and renovating dilapidated housing, urban underground pipe network projects, and other projects to improve living standards;

■ major railway, highway, and inland waterway transport projects in the central and western regions;

■ agricultural projects on water conservancy arid developing high-quality farmland;

■ projects that involve major information, electricity, oil, and natural gas networks;

■ clean energy projects, and oil, natural gas, and mineral resource supply projects;

■ projects for upgrading traditional industries; and

■ energy-saving, environmental protection, and ecological conservation projects.

This year, the central government will increase its budgetary investment to 477.6 billion yuan. However, the government does not intend to perform an investment soliloquy; we need to do more to stimulate private investment arid channel the investment of nongovernmental capital into more areas.

We will invest over 800 billion yuan in railway construction and open over 8,000 kilometers of railways to traffic. We will work to ensure that drive-through electronic toll collection systems are connected up on expressways throughout the country, and work toward making transportation truly lead the way in promoting development. Construction on the 57 ongoing major water conservancy projects needs to be accelerated; construction will be started on an additional 27 such projects this year, and investment in the major water conservancy projects under construction will exceed 800 billion yuan. Investment to be made in the above sectors, such as railways, water conservancy, and projects to rebuild rundown urban areas, will be weighted toward the central and western regions, helping stimulate enormous domestic demand.