Address on current economy

During my recent visit to Thailand, I also made great effort to promote China's high-speed railway. I told them we have advanced, safe and reliable technologies and rich experience in operation. Our companies should enter the international market. We should not just buy things from others, but also sell value-added products. We should sell to other countries not just clothes, shoes, hats or general products, but also finished goods, especially medium- and high-end products. There is still a lot we can do in this respect.

Fourth, we have guided market expectation. Despite all the efforts we have made, there are still some concerns in the market, like whether the reform steps taken, including streamlining government and delegating power as well as structural readjustment, will make real difference this year. In addition, some foreign media are talking down China, claiming that there will be a hard landing for the Chinese economy. Even some leading economists predict that the growth rate of the Chinese economy will drop to 3% this year. I have also heard similar views during my meetings with foreign visitors. Although high GDP growth is not our goal, still less exclusive focus on GDP, a reasonable growth rate is necessary. So we have set an appropriate band to guide market expectation. What is the appropriate band? People keep asking me what exactly are the ceiling and floor. Well, as decided at the annual session of the National People's Congress earlier this year, a growth rate of around 7.5% is taken as the floor. Because this directly concerns employment. During my visits to some export companies in the worst days of the first quarter, I was told that they would never cut jobs although export orders had stopped growing. I thanked them not only on behalf of employees, especially rural migrant workers, but also on behalf of the country, and I said to them that all other companies should follow their example. University graduates are a valuable asset of our country. 6.99 million students will graduate from universities this year, more than in any previous year. Facing a demanding and complex economic environment, we have adopted a plan to help them find jobs. Under this plan, a university graduate who fails to find a job one or two times will still get support from the government, instead of being left unheeded. Both universities and government departments for human resources and social security must closely follow employment of graduates and provide to them training, job advice and opportunities. We should not allow zero-employment families. The trade unions have done a lot to address this issue. During my post in Northeast China, I visited a family with no member having a job. It was sad to see a family of several members having no jobs, including a boy and a girl at working age. The family was lifeless and hopeless. So we must ensure their basic living needs. That is why I have just talked about the need to ensure stable growth so as to create jobs. And we guide the market expectation by setting an appropriate band, with the floor of growth rate set at 7.5%. The ceiling is that CPI should not exceed 3.5% so that it will not affect people's living. The weighting of food in China's CPI basket is 33%. There are still many mid-and low-income people in China. Over 20 million urban residents and over 50 million rural residents, or 5% of the population, depend on basic living allowances. So this is the signal we have sent to the public: If the economy moves beyond this appropriate band, the government will take targeted measures. But, even when this appropriate band is maintained, we will still do our best to unleash all dividends of reform. We will work hard to deepen reform, promote structural adjustment and foster internally generated growth momentum by galvanizing market forces. I am not suggesting that the government is not responsible for maintaining macro-economic stability. Of course we have this responsibility and we are capable of maintaining such stability. We have sent this message to the world loud and clear.