政府文献/2008年政府工作报告

Total volume of imports and exports reached $2.17 trillion in 2007, raising China from the sixth largest trading nation in the world to the third largest.

– Free compulsory education was made available to all rural students, marking an important milestone in the history of the development of education in China.

The basic frameworks for a public health system and a system of basic medical services covering both urban and rural areas have been put in place.

– Steady improvement was made in the urban and rural system of public cultural services.

Significant progress was made in reform of the cultural management system, and the development of cultural programs and cultural industries was accelerated.

The Shanghai Special Olympics was successfully held.

Preparations for the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai proceeded smoothly.

– Progress was made in developing democracy and the legal system and in enhancing law-based government.

Fifty-one million urban jobs were created over the past five years.

Urban per capita annual disposable income rose from 7,703 yuan in 2002 to 13,786 yuan in 2007, and rural per capita annual net income rose from 2,476 yuan to 4,140 yuan during the same period.

The basic framework for a social safety net for both urban and rural areas was put in place.

The number of people living in poverty was reduced every year.

All these improvements fully demonstrate that during the past five-year period great strides were made in carrying out reform and opening up and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

During the past five years we established and put into practice the Scientific Outlook on Development, worked hard on economic development, deepened reform and opening up, ensured the wellbeing of the people, improved their lives, and promoted social harmony.

We endeavored to make macroeconomic regulation more proactive, responsive and effective, with the focus on resolving major problems affecting economic operation.

Over the past few years, we tightened controls on the supplies of land and credit, raised market access requirements, adjusted financial and monetary policies as needed, improved industrial policies and the land policy, adjusted the economic structure, shored up weak links and effectively regulated economic operation to address problems such as overheated growth in fixed asset investment, excessive supplies of money and credit, excessively large trade surplus, and weakness in agriculture, the foundation of the economy, which could cause economic development to become unstable, unbalanced and unsustainable.

In response to changes in the economy, we have repeatedly made timely adjustments in the required reserve ratio and the benchmark interest rates for savings and loans in financial institutions and rescinded or reduced export tax rebates for resource products and products whose production is energy intensive or highly polluting.

These macroeconomic regulatory measures produced significant results, and China's economy maintained steady and rapid development throughout the five-year period, without experiencing major fluctuations.

We adopted a series of major measures related to institutions, policies and investment to increase grain production and rural incomes as a matter of priority and strengthen agriculture as the foundation of the economy.

We completely rescinded the agricultural tax, livestock tax and tax on special agricultural products throughout China, reducing the burden on farmers by an average of 133.5 billion yuan per year.

In addition, we set up a subsidy scheme for agriculture, instituting direct subsidies for grain producers, subsidies for superior crop varieties, subsidies for the purchase of agricultural machinery and tools, and general subsidies for agricultural production supplies and providing incentives to major grain-producing counties and subsidies to counties and townships with serious financial difficulties.

Investment in agriculture and rural areas was greatly increased.

During the five-year period, an additional 6.667 million hectares of farmland was equipped with water-saving irrigation facilities, methane gas was made available to 16.5 million more households, 1.3 million kilometers of rural roads were built or upgraded, and safe drinking water was provided to an additional 97.48 million rural residents.

These measures greatly encouraged farmers to grow more, gave a strong impetus to the development of a new socialist countryside and brought historic changes to rural China to the great satisfaction of hundreds of millions of rural people.