On October 24, the sixth meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress voted to pass the resolution of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on approving the State Council's additional issuance of national bonds and the 2023 central budget adjustment plan, which clearly defined that the central finance will issue an additional 100 billion yuan of national bonds in 2023 in the fourth quarter of this year. On the 25th, at the regular briefing on the policies of the State Council held by the Information Office of the State Council, the relevant heads of the Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission answered questions from journalists.

Since this year, many places in China have suffered from heavy rain, floods, typhoons and other disasters. Some areas have suffered serious disasters with large losses, and local post disaster recovery and reconstruction tasks are heavy. At the same time, in recent years, various extreme natural disasters have occurred frequently, which puts forward higher requirements for China's ability to prevent, mitigate and provide disaster relief.

The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting on August 17 to study and deploy flood control, flood relief and post disaster recovery and reconstruction. The meeting proposed that "accelerating recovery and reconstruction" and "further improving China's capacity for disaster prevention, mitigation and relief".

This investment of 1 trillion yuan of national debt funds focuses on the key tasks determined at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and is mainly used in eight directions, including: post disaster recovery and reconstruction, support for post disaster recovery and reconstruction in North China, with Beijing Tianjin Hebei as the focus, and improve disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities, and promote the basic production and living conditions and economic development of disaster areas to restore to the pre disaster level; Key flood control projects focusing on Haihe River, Songhua River basin and other northern areas; Natural disaster emergency capability improvement project; Other key flood control works; Construction and reconstruction of irrigation areas and key water and soil loss control projects; Action to improve urban drainage and waterlogging prevention capacity; Key natural disaster comprehensive prevention and control system construction project; High standard farmland construction in Northeast China and disaster stricken areas in Beijing Tianjin Hebei.

The 1 trillion yuan national debt will be managed as special national debt. According to this calculation, the national fiscal deficit will increase from 3.88 trillion yuan to 4.88 trillion yuan in 2023, and the central fiscal deficit will increase from 3.16 trillion yuan to 4.16 trillion yuan. It is estimated that the fiscal deficit ratio will increase from 3% to about 3.8%.

"Although the deficit ratio has slightly increased this year, the debt ratio of the Chinese government is still within a reasonable range, and the overall risk is controllable. After the use of national debt funds, it will also actively drive domestic demand, and further consolidate the recovery of China's economy," said Zhu Zhongming, Vice Minister of Finance.

In terms of capital arrangement and use, 1 trillion yuan of national debt is allocated to local governments through transfer payment, and the central government is responsible for the repayment of principal and interest. It is preliminarily considered to use 500 billion yuan of additional treasury bond funds in 2023 and 500 billion yuan in 2024.

Zhu Zhongming said that this additional issuance of national debt will be issued in the form of public issuance, and will be coordinated with the annual national debt issuance that has been determined.

Zhang Shixin, Deputy Secretary General of the National Development and Reform Commission, introduced that in order to promote the accurate and effective use of funds, all the additional treasury bond funds were managed according to the project, and the principle of "funds and elements follow the project" was implemented.

Luo Guosan, Director of the Department of Fixed Assets Investment of the National Development and Reform Commission, introduced that, in terms of project selection, the first is to comply with the planning or implementation scheme. Give priority to supporting the projects specified in the "14th Five Year Plan", the key special plans and regional plans approved by the State Council and relevant departments of the State Council, as well as the local key plans, to ensure that the project construction meets the actual needs.

The second is to meet the requirements of investment fields. The main construction content of the project should be in line with the scope of the national debt fund support, focusing on the post disaster recovery and reconstruction and improving the ability of disaster prevention, mitigation and relief. We will resolutely avoid arranging general competitive industrial projects, buildings and museums, image projects and performance projects, and use national debt funds to cut corners.

Third, the preliminary work is relatively mature. For projects under construction, all procedures are required to be complete. For newly started projects, it is required that the preliminary research and demonstration are relatively sufficient, have a solid foundation for preliminary work, and can start construction as soon as possible, especially some urgently needed projects can be completed and put into use before the flood season next year. "Before the commencement of construction, the geological conditions, ecological risks, engineering difficulties, construction plans, and the needs of the masses should be well studied, so as to avoid hasty starting, which will lead to major difficulties in the construction implementation, resulting in the inability to use funds, serious impact on the construction period, and even economic and social benefits." Luo Guosan said.

Fourth, the fund demand matches the construction progress. Ensure that the funds can be put into use as soon as possible after being allocated.

It is very important to strengthen the supervision of treasury bonds to ensure the use efficiency of funds.

The Ministry of Finance will make full use of the direct mechanism to include all the transfer payment funds of national debt into the scope of direct financial funds, introduce all the direct funds monitoring system, implement the whole process tracking and monitoring, and timely identify and properly handle the problems that may affect the efficiency of fund use.

The development and reform department will strengthen the supervision and inspection of the commencement and use of funds of national debt projects through online monitoring, on-site supervision and other means. In accordance with the relevant regulations, we will seriously pursue the responsibility for the misappropriation of treasury bond project funds and other issues.

People's Daily (October 26, 2023, Version 02)

Concerned public account: People's Daily Finance

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