Stability focus

In view of the current economic deceleration, Wang Yiming, Policy Advisor with the State Council Development Research Center, believes that China should maintain stability and continuity of its macro policies to stabilize market expectation, while boosting market confidence by implementing major reform initiatives.

“We should have confidence in maintaining stability instead of looking for quick success,” said Wang.

Other priorities also include supply-side structural reform aimed at cutting excessive capacity, destocking, deleveraging, reducing enterprises’ costs and shoring up the economy’s weak links, as well as increasing consumption and improving the investment environment.

The supply-side structural reform made initial progress in 2016 but its success is certainly no easy feat.

“It takes time to fundamentally transform the growth models by further deepening structural reform this year,” said Zhang Liqun, Researcher with State Council Development Research Center.

Wang agreed, saying the country could combine capacity-cutting with reform of state-owned enterprises (SOES). Efforts should be made to decrease real estate inventory in third- and fourth-tier cities, gradually phase out deleveraging, lower transaction costs, and enhance support for growth in soft power. forward reforms in key sectors, including the SOES, taxation, finance and social security.

Analysts believe that China’s economy will realize a more optimized structure and division of labor, create new driving forces, and develop stronger resilience and a greater capability to resist risks.

“While advancing the reform, we must cling firmly to some major market-oriented reforms this year,” said Peng Sen, Chairman of China Society of Economic Reform. Peng said the country must make a breakthrough in the series of reforms in key sectors for sustainable growth, including deepening reform of SOES, coordinating central-local relations, and improving social security systems.

Additionally, the real economy sectors will be boosted. Analysts said that boosting the real economy is an important driving force for China’s transformation and upgrading under the pressure of an economic downturn.

“Manufacturing has become the main ’battlefield’ for reviving the real economy by bringing innovation to its core,” said Li Guangbei, Deputy Director of Department of Planning, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, adding that it is more important to advance traditional industries by innovation, in addition to speeding up the development of emerging industries.

The real estate market is still under the spotlight in 2017. The government will accelerate establishing a long-term mechanism for the real estate market’s stable and healthy growth that follows market rules and is in line with national conditions.

Insiders believe that maintaining stability in the real estate market will be the main policy orientation over a long period. Under the long-term mechanism, government departments and market players will be able to actively and rationally participate in the development of real estate, according to Ni Pengfei, Assistant to the Dean of the National Academy of Economic Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Liu Hongyu, Professor at Tsinghua University, said the conference indicates that for the next steps, a series of institutional building needs strengthening in such aspects as land