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6. Utilizing the Three Initiatives to pursue coordinated and integrated development between regions.
Making full use of the comparative strengths of each region, we will adopt differentiated policies to promote their development, and accelerate efforts to cultivate new growth axes and growth belts.
1) We will effectively carry out the Three Initiatives.
We will put into practice the guiding principles from General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the conference on developing the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Focusing on key areas, pivotal countries, and signature projects, we will proactively engage in practical collaboration and implement cooperation agreements and plans.
A combination of relocations and restrictions will be used in working to relieve Beijing of functions non-essential to its role as capital. We will work to coordinate and accelerate the planning and building of Beijing's sub-administrative center as well as other platforms for accommodating relocated functions. We will continue to strive for breakthroughs in the three key areas of transportation, ecological conservation, and industry, while also strengthening the three key pillars of innovation, reform, and pilot projects. We will promote the joint development and sharing of basic public services, and support comprehensive trials for deeper reform and greater opening up of Beijing's service sector.
With a continued focus on ecological conservation and green development, we will move ahead with projects to improve the water environment, restore water ecosystems, and conserve water resources in building the Yangtze Economic Belt. We will work to ensure ease of navigation on waterways, connectivity between transportation hubs, integrated river-ocean transportation, and simplified customs clearance procedures. We will advance major projects for the Yangtze golden watercourse initiative and establish a negative-list management system.
2) We will work to improve the layout of regional development.
We will fully carry out the plan for the large-scale development of the western region during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, shoring up weak links in infrastructure, promoting ecological conservation, and accelerating the transformation and upgrading of competitive industries that draw on local strengths.
We will fully implement a new round of major policies and plans aimed at revitalizing the northeast and other old industrial bases. We will also put into action the plan for the revitalization of the northeast during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, establish cooperative partnerships between provinces and municipalities in the northeast and in the eastern region, and step up support for the relocation or rebuilding of old industrial areas within cities and independent industrial and mining areas as well as for comprehensive efforts to improve the conditions of areas affected by mining-induced subsidence.
We will ensure full implementation of the plan for the rise of the central region during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, accelerate the development of the eco-economic belts along the Han and Huai rivers, and ensure smooth operation of the experimental zone for comprehensive reform to promote sustainable development in Shanxi.
We will support the eastern region in increasing the pace as it spearheads economic transformation and development, and work to further leverage its role as a model and leader of reform and innovation.
We will enhance domestic and international regional cooperation in a coordinated way, support the development of major function platforms, and work hard to coordinate land and marine development.
We will accelerate the building of infrastructure and public service facilities in old revolutionary base areas, ethnic minority areas, border areas, and contiguous poor areas; all these efforts will be incorporated into major national development strategies. We will continue to support the development of Tibet and Xinjiang, and the Tibetan ethnic areas in the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai, providing greater central government support as well as paired assistance.
Box 16: Better Layout of Regional Development
3) We will steadily drive forward New Urbanization.
With a focus on increasing the number of urban residents, we will deepen reform of the household registration system, work to achieve full coverage of the residence certification system, and bring people with rural household registration living in cities under the housing provident scheme in a well-ordered way, so as to raise the overall quality of urbanization. We will move faster to formulate city-cluster development plans for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao greater bay area, the western shore of the Taiwan Straits, the Guanzhong Plains region, and the Hohhot-Baotou-Ordos-Yulin region. In addition, we will launch the national initiative to develop principal cities and elevate eligible counties and very large towns into cities in an orderly manner. Efforts will be made to integrate various types of local urban plans into a single master plan to ensure better urban planning and design. We will accelerate the upgrading and building of municipal infrastructure, step up work relating to urban geological surveys, steadily move ahead with the construction of urban utility tunnels and the comprehensive management of underground pipelines and cables, and take effective measures to deal with traffic congestion and other urban maladies.
We will do more to see that beautiful small towns and cities with unique features and beautiful villages are developed. We will leverage the leading role of New Urbanization to spur on the building of a new countryside and the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in rural areas and will coordinate efforts to relocate people from inhospitable areas with the advancement of New Urbanization.
Figure 12. Permanent Urban Residents as a Percentage of Total Population
7. Promoting deeper, higher-level bidirectional opening up
We will enhance overall coordination and planning, particularly between efforts at home and abroad; integrate efforts to further open up, improve services, and enhance regulation; and strive to carve out new competitive edges in international markets.
1) We will deliver more concrete results in developing the Belt and Road.
We will accelerate the development of the six major international economic cooperation corridors, ensure the smooth construction and operation of important ports such as Gwadar, Piraeus, and Hambantota, steadily push ahead with the high-speed railway projects to connect Jakarta and Bandung in Indonesia and Moscow and Kazan in Russia, as well as the railway projects to connect China and Laos, China and Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, and Hungary and Serbia, and further strengthen the brand of China-Europe freight train services. We will strive to make a great success of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.
We will actively advance concrete international cooperation on industrial capacity, build up a reserve of projects, and establish demonstration zones, so as to promote Chinese equipment, technology, standards, and services in going global. Efforts will be stepped up to develop the China-Belarus Industrial Park, the China-Egypt Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park, and other overseas economic-trade and industrial parks. We will continue to build cross-border (border-area) economic cooperation zones and promote cooperation on developing the Online Silk Road. We will increase personal and cultural exchange and cooperation in education, science and technology, culture, health, and tourism.
2) We will work to sustain the steady recovery and growth of foreign trade.
We will implement and improve policies for promoting foreign trade, give full play to the role of export-credit insurance, and ensure export financing insurance is provided for all complete sets of equipment that are insurable. A seed fund will be set up to encourage innovation in the development of services trade. We will proceed with trials in market purchases trade and in the development of enterprises that provide comprehensive foreign trade services, and promote the export of competitive agricultural products. We will work faster to build demonstration centers for transformation and upgrading of foreign trade. We will encourage the processing trade to extend toward the high end of the industrial chain and to gradually relocate to the central and western regions.
We will increase trade facilitation by ensuring that both the Single Window System for international trade is implemented and customs clearance procedures are integrated nationwide. The import of advanced technology and equipment and key spare parts and components will be increased. We will advance negotiations on establishing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and continue to advance the building of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific. We will properly handle trade frictions and safeguard China's legitimate rights and interests.
3) We will further improve the business environment for foreign investment.
We will issue and implement the measures for greater opening up to and dynamic use of foreign capital, the revised Catalog of Industries for Foreign Investment, and the Catalog of Industries with Local Strengths in the Central and Western Regions for Foreign Investment, so as to ensure more areas are opened up and procedures are streamlined. We will take a more proactive approach to building pilot free trade zones; focusing on priority tasks and weak links, we will continue to explore ways to deepen reform and work to produce more institutional innovations that can be replicated. We will improve the system for managing the foreign debt of foreign-funded enterprises. China's non-financial foreign direct investment for 2017 is projected to be similar to that of last year.
4) We will guide healthy and orderly development of outbound investment.
We will make the reviews for verifying the authenticity of outbound investment more stringent, draw up a blacklist in this regard, introduce a system of capital contribution requirements for SOEs' outward investment, and work to prevent outward investment from rising excessively fast. We will refine the service system and policies for promoting outward investment, and provide guidance to ensure Chinese businesses go global in a well-regulated and orderly manner. China's non-financial outward direct investment in 2017 is projected to be roughly the same as last year.
Figure 13. Non-Financial Inward and Outward Foreign Direct Investment
8. Working faster to advance green development
We will intensify efforts to deliver ecological progress, take comprehensive measures to promote resource conservation, increase the supply of green products, and bring about an all-around improvement in the quality of the environment, so as to ensure the building of a Beautiful China proceeds at a faster pace.
1) We will deepen structural reform for promoting ecological progress.
We will work proactively to establish national pilot zones for ecological progress. Trials will be carried out to improve the national natural resource asset management system. All-around efforts will be made to establish and strictly enforce red lines for ecological conservation. We will push ahead with reform of the system for payment-based use of state-owned natural resource assets, and formulate provisional measures for auditing outgoing officials' management of these assets.
Evaluations will be conducted to assess performance in relation to ecological conservation targets, and provincial-level green growth indicators for 2016 will be published. We will strive to achieve nationwide coverage of central government environmental inspections, and advance trials for reforming the system that places the monitoring, supervision, and law enforcement activities of environmental bodies below the provincial level directly under the leadership of provincial-level environmental bodies. We will move forward with the efforts to reform the compensation system for ecological and environmental damage, improve the green finance system, and issue more bonds for launching eco-friendly initiatives.
2) We will improve the functional zoning system.
Guidelines will be formulated to improve the functional zoning strategy and system. Work will begin on revising both the national plan for functional zoning and the corresponding plans of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government. We will move faster to promote trials on provincial-level spatial planning, and also issue guidelines on the formulation of prefecture- and county-level spatial plans. We will draw up technical standards for enforcing red lines for ecological conservation, setting the threshold for environmental quality, imposing a ceiling on resource utilization, and implementing a negative list of environmental standards for market access, and will see that environmental impact assessments for strategies and plans are put in place.
We will draw up an overall plan for establishing a national park system. We will work out guidelines on creating long-term monitoring and early-warning mechanisms for environmental and resource carrying capacity, and begin monitoring and early-warning work along the Yangtze Economic Belt. Negative lists of industries will be strictly implemented for key ecosystem service zones. Supporting policies for establishing marine functional zones will be produced. We will also begin work on formulating provincial-level land plans.
3) We will ensure more effective use of resources.
The overall work plan for energy conservation and emissions reduction during the 13th Five-Year Plan period will be put into effect. We will work to curb the total amount and intensity of energy, water, and land consumption; launch the Nation of Energy Savers Initiative, the "100-1,000-10,000" energy conservation program*, and the Frontrunner Program for Energy Conservation; drive forward trials on paying for and trading energy-use rights; and implement the project to promote the integration and optimization of the energy mix, so as to ensure less water, wind, and solar power lies idle.
We will get everyone saving water, put in place a water efficiency labeling scheme, and redouble our efforts to utilize alternative water resources. We will launch an initiative to guide circular development, formulate the Internet Plus Resource Recycling Action Plan, promote circular operations within industrial parks, and support the establishment of demonstration centers for the resource recycling industry and centers for the comprehensive use of waste.
4) We will strengthen environmental governance and ecological conservation.
We will fully implement the major action plans for addressing air, water, and soil pollution. Every effort will be made to tackle air pollution; we will strengthen early-warning mechanisms for severe air pollution and ensure that tougher measures are implemented to prevent and control air pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, that efforts to cut coal consumption, replace it with alternative energy, and prevent and control its pollution are made in key areas and cities - including in and around the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta - that more clean energy sources are used for winter heating across northern China, and that comprehensive measures are taken to ensure cleaner use of coal in non-industrial sectors and to substitute coal with electricity or natural gas in more than 3 million households.
We will put in place an early-warning and integrated-oversight system for the prevention and control of water pollution, formulate the plan for the prevention and control of water pollution in key water basins during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, and implement the program to advance ecological conservation and environmental protection along the Yangtze Economic Belt. New systems and mechanisms to manage and protect rivers and lakes will be established and the river chief system will be implemented across the board.
Pilot and demonstration projects will be carried out to move ahead with all-around ecological restoration in cities. We will make greater efforts to improve black, malodorous water bodies in cities, and increase the overall effectiveness of urban sewage treatment and recycling facilities. We will encourage key cities to carry out mandatory household waste classification and to move faster in building facilities for sorting, collecting, transporting, and disposing of waste. We will steadily advance the emissions permit system, and carry out demonstrations for sorting and recycling rural household waste in about 100 counties. We will establish an environmental management system for fixed pollution sources which is based on emissions permits, and strictly control the total amount of sewage dumped into rivers.
* The 100-1,000-10,000 energy conservation program aims to put the top 100 energy consuming enterprises in China under regulation of the central government, the top 1,000 energy consuming enterprises under the regulation of their respective provincial-level governments, and a further 10,000 plus high-energy consuming enterprises under the regulation of lower-level governments.
We will actively promote third-party participation in pollution control. An in-depth survey will be carried out throughout the country to assess the situation in relation to soil contamination, legislative work on the Law on Prevention and Control of Soil Pollution will be sped up, and standards for the quality of soil environments on agricultural land and construction land will be formulated or revised. We will ensure that emissions of all industrial polluters stay within emissions standards.
We will build national ecological security shields, push ahead with large-scale afforestation, and implement projects for ecological conservation and restoration in mountains, water bodies, and forests, and on farmland as well as major biodiversity protection projects. We will move ahead with the projects to return marginal farmland to forest or grassland and return grazing land to grassland, develop forest shelterbelts, protect natural forests, and comprehensively tackle soil erosion.
We will put in place pilot and demonstration programs to advance the comprehensive governance and sustainable development of the water environment in water basins, and will promote the return of cultivated land to wetland and the reduction of mudflat aquaculture so as to restore mudflat ecosystems. Strict control and oversight will be imposed over coastal reclamation activities. Remote sensing systems will be established in nature reserves to strengthen oversight.
5) We will proactively respond to climate change.
A national market for carbon emissions rights will be put into operation. We will move quicker to carry out the low-carbon pilot and demonstration programs as well as the trials for developing climate resilient cities. We will actively participate and play a guiding role in the follow-up negotiations of the Paris Agreement, make every effort to promote climate diplomacy, and ensure efforts are carried out at home to fulfill our promises in the Agreement. We will continue to promote international dialogue and effective cooperation, and strengthen South-South cooperation on climate change.
