II. Building a High-Standard Socialist Market Economy
A high-standard socialist market economy provides an important guarantee for Chinese modernization. We must better leverage the role of the market, foster a fairer and more dynamic market environment, and make resource allocation as efficient and productive as possible. We need to lift restrictions on the market while ensuring effective regulation and strive to better maintain order in the market and remedy market failures. By doing so, we will ensure smooth flows in the national economy and unleash the internal driving forces and creativity of the whole of society.
(5) Upholding and fulfilling the commitments to the public and non-public sectors
We will stay committed to unswervingly consolidating and developing the public sector and unswervingly encouraging, supporting, and guiding the development of the non-public sector. We will ensure that economic entities under all forms of ownership have equal access to factors of production in accordance with the law, compete in the market on an equal footing, and are protected by the law as equals, thus enabling them to complement each other and develop side by side.
We will deepen reform of state capital and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), improving the institutions and mechanisms for management and oversight, strengthening strategic coordination between relevant administrative departments, and working to refine the layout of the state-owned sector and adjust its structure. All this will help state capital and SOEs get stronger, do better, and grow bigger, with their core functions and core competitiveness enhanced. We will clearly define the functions of different types of SOEs, improve the management of their primary responsibilities and core business, and identify the key areas and orientations for state capital investment. State capital will be steered toward major industries and key fields that are vital to national security and serve as the lifeblood of the national economy, toward sectors such as public services, emergency response, and public welfare, which concern our country's prosperity and our people's wellbeing, and toward forward-looking and strategic emerging industries. The institutional framework under which SOEs pursue original innovation will be improved, and the reform of state capital investment and operation companies will be continued. We will establish a system to assess SOEs' performance in fulfilling their strategic missions, refine the category-based SOE evaluation system, and introduce value-added accounting in the state-owned sector. While promoting independent operation of natural monopoly businesses in sectors such as energy, railway, telecommunications, water conservancy, and public utilities, we will advance market-oriented reforms in the competitive areas of these sectors and improve regulatory institutions and mechanisms.
We will continue to implement principles and policies that help foster a favorable environment and create more opportunities for the development of the non-public sector. We will formulate a private sector promotion law. We will do more to remove barriers to market access, work to see that the competitive areas of infrastructure are open to market entities in a fair manner, and improve the long-term mechanism by which private enterprises participate in major national projects. We will support capable private enterprises in leading national initiatives to make breakthroughs in major technologies and provide private enterprises with greater access to major national scientific research infrastructure. We will refine financing support policies and systems for private enterprises to resolve the difficulties they face in accessing affordable financing. We will improve the legal framework for the long-term regulation of charges levied on enterprises and for clearing overdue payments owed to them. We will move faster to set up a system for comprehensively evaluating private enterprises' credit status and refine the credit enhancement system for small and medium private enterprises. We will support and guide private enterprises in improving their governance structures and management systems, building up compliance capacity, and better preventing corruption-related risks. We will strengthen ongoing and ex post oversight and regulate administrative inspections on private enterprises.
We will refine the modern corporate system with distinctive Chinese features and promote entrepreneurial spirit. We will support and guide enterprises of all types as they work to use resources and production factors more efficiently, improve their operation and management, and fulfill their social responsibilities. Efforts will be accelerated to foster a greater number of world-class enterprises.
(6) Building a unified national market
We will work to see that the underlying institutions and rules of the market are unified, that market regulation is exercised in an impartial and unified manner, and that connectivity between market facilities is built to high standards. We will enhance the binding force of fair competition review, take stronger action against monopolies and unfair competition, and review and abolish regulations and practices that impede the development of a unified national market and fair competition. We will bring local regulations and institutions for attracting investment under regulation and strictly prohibit policy incentives in breach of laws and regulations. We will establish sound, unified, and well-regulated public resource trading platforms that facilitate information sharing. Such platforms will cover public bidding as well as procurement by the government, public institutions, and SOEs and ensure full transparency throughout the project management process. Overall market regulation capabilities will be enhanced. We will refine the national system of standards and deepen reform of local systems for standards management.
The institutions and rules for production factor markets will be improved to facilitate the smooth flow of production factors, the efficient allocation of all types of resources, and the full realization of market potential. We will develop a unified market for urban and rural land designated for construction. We will refine the underlying systems for promoting well-regulated development of the capital market and foster an integrated national market for technology and data. By refining the mechanisms whereby production factors are priced primarily based on market supply and demand, we will prevent improper government interference in pricing. We will also develop better mechanisms to ensure the contributions of production factors, such as labor, capital, land, knowledge, technology, management, and data, are determined by the market and rewarded accordingly. Pricing reforms will be continued in sectors such as water, energy, and transportation, and the tiered pricing mechanisms for household water, electricity, and natural gas consumption will be improved, as will the pricing mechanism for refined petroleum products.
We will improve the commodity distribution system, speed up the development of the Internet of Things, and further refine the integrated framework of distribution rules and standards to cut logistics costs throughout society. We will deepen reform of the energy management system, build a unified national electricity market, and improve the operation and coordination mechanisms for oil and gas pipelines.
We will step up efforts to develop a complete domestic demand system. To this end, we will set up long-term government investment mechanisms to support the development of major projects that are of fundamental and far-reaching importance and serve the public interest; refine the institutions and mechanisms that enable government investment to effectively drive nongovernmental investment; further reform the investment review and approval system; improve the mechanisms for stimulating and facilitating nongovernmental investment; and create a market-driven mechanism for ensuring self-sustaining growth of effective investment. We will refine long-term mechanisms for expanding consumption, reduce relevant restrictions, boost public spending as necessary, and actively promote the debut economy.
(7) Refining the systems underpinning the market economy
We will improve the property rights system to ensure law-based, equitable protection of the property rights of economic entities under all forms of ownership on a long-term basis and establish an efficient system for the comprehensive management of intellectual property rights. We will refine the market information disclosure system and put in place a commercial secrets protection system. All economic entities, regardless of their form of ownership, will be treated as equals when their property rights and legal interests are infringed upon or they infringe upon the property rights and legal interests of others. We will also refine the punitive compensation system. We will work to bolster law enforcement and justice administration to protect property rights, prevent and rectify administrative and criminal interference in economic disputes, and refine the mechanisms for identifying and redressing wrongly adjudicated cases involving enterprises in accordance with the law.
We will refine the market access system to ensure greater accessibility for new forms of business and new sectors. We will deepen reform of the business registration system based on subscribed registered capital and ensure that subscriptions are paid on time as stipulated by law. We will refine the enterprise bankruptcy mechanism, explore the establishment of a bankruptcy system for individual persons, move ahead with integrated reforms concerning the deregistration of enterprises, and improve the market exit system. We will also improve the social credit system and related oversight institutions.
