BIGGER DEFICIT & OVERCAPACITY CUT
Li's report listed a package of pragmatic policies to address economic weakness, including tax cut, flexible monetary policy, cut of overcapacity, and business creativity.
This year China's government deficit is expected to stand at 2.18 trillion yuan (335 billion U.S. dollars), 560 billion yuan more than last year, while the deficit-to-GDP ratio up from 2.3 to 3 percent.
The policy is mainly to cover tax and fee reduction, which is expected to ease the financial burden on industry by over 500 billion yuan together with other policies.
The premier also vowed to address capacity glut in steel, coal and other heavy industries as well as strictly control the expansion. About 100 billion yuan will be spent on resettling laid-off employees in these industries.
Wang Shiling, an NPC deputy and president of a real estate and trade company in east China's Shandong Province, told Xinhua that he feels positive about in China's economic future.
"The government has included targeted policies to close loopholes and encourage initiative in industry. These are exactly what we need now," he said.
OUTLINING 2016-2020 PLAN
A draft outline of the 13th five-year national development was also submitted for lawmakers' reading. Apart from GDP growth, it listed a set of targets from industrial upgrading, agriculture, environment and people's livelihood, as well as a considerable number of important scientific, technological and infrastructure investment projects.
Noting that China's priority for next five years will be development, Premier Li said that it must take particular care to avoid falling into the "middle-income trap."
"Pursuing development is like sailing against the current: you either forge ahead or drift downstream," he said, also stressing two key issues, restructuring and shift of growth engines.
He highlighted the country's workforce of over 900 million, of whom over 100 million have received higher education or are professionally trained. "This is our greatest resource and strength," he said.
Ou Chengzhong, an NPC deputy from north China's Tianjin Municipality, said he is looking forward to a good beginning of this five-year plan.
"There are still a lot of policy tools the government has not resorted to. I believe there are ample wiggle room to deal with current problems," he said.
