▲ People's eFinance: Do it in the next five years!

Guest: Yao Jingyuan, Special Researcher of the Counsellor's Office of the State Council
Guest: Zhang Guigui, Editor in Chief of People's Daily Power Forum
Host: Qu Zhehan, senior reporter of People's Daily

host: Hello, here is the new media interview column "People's e-Finance" jointly created by the People's Daily Powerful Forum, People's Daily Spicy Finance Studio and the National Party Media Information Platform. Our topic today is the coming of the 14th Five Year Plan. Today's two guests in the studio are: Mr. Yao Jingyuan, a special researcher in the Counsellor's Office of the State Council, and Mr. Zhang Guigui, editor in chief of the People's Daily Powerful Forum.

Yao Jingyuan: Hello, everyone.

Zhang Guigui: Hello, everyone.

host: From October 26 to 29, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. The Plenary Session reviewed the proposals for the 14th Five Year Plan and the long-term goals for 2035. Since 1953, we have successively formulated and implemented the 13th Five Year Plan. Mr. Yao, what is the significance of the 14th Five Year Plan for China's economic and social development?

Yao Jingyuan: For some time, the 14th Five Year Plan has been the focus of the whole society. Our country began to formulate the first five-year plan in 1953, and will enter the 14th Five Year Plan next year.

The five-year plan or five-year plan is a programmatic document for the economic and social development of the whole country. This plan reflects the major development strategic intention of the country. At the same time, it should also clarify the responsibility of the government in the development process. Another is to guide our market players how to do it. Therefore, this plan is crucial.

As you know, our Party has two centennial goals. The first is the centennial goal of building the Party, from 1921 to 2021. The fundamental goal of this centennial goal is to achieve a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The second centenary goal is from 1949 to 2050, which is the centenary of the founding of New China. Our second centennial goal is to build the country into a modern and powerful socialist country.

Why do you pay so much attention to the 14th Five Year Plan? This is because the 14th Five Year Plan is a historical stage in which the two centenary goals connect the past and the future. At this historical stage, on the one hand, we should achieve our first centenary goal, and on the basis of achieving the first centenary goal, we will start the second centenary goal.

Moreover, in addition to clarifying the "14th Five Year Plan", the Fifth Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee also proposed a more long-term vision of 2035, which is what General Secretary Xi Jinping said in the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China to achieve the second centennial goal. Because from now on, there are 30 years to 2050. These 30 years are the first 15 years and the last 15 years. The first 15 years is to basically realize modernization by 2035, and everyone's focus is here.

host: The blueprint for China's development in the next five to fifteen years, including the mission statement and road map, is in it. We are very lucky to witness this moment. What do you expect from the 14th Five Year Plan, Mr. Zhang?

Zhang Guigui: The "13th Five Year Plan" has brought us a very bright report card, and our expectations will be higher during the "14th Five Year Plan". I hope that people in the future will live more comfortably and our country's comprehensive strength will become stronger and stronger. As for the expectations of the "14th Five Year Plan", I think the future is positioned in the words of "making the country rich and the people strong".

host: During the preparation of the "14th Five Year Plan", General Secretary Xi Jinping went to the grass-roots level again and again, held a lot of symposiums to ask for advice, and organically unified the top-level design and consideration with the people. What do you think are the key points and highlights of the 14th Five Year Plan?

Yao Jingyuan: In the past two years, the General Secretary has visited provinces, cities and even counties for many times to conduct research on the 14th Five Year Plan. Since August, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have publicly solicited netizens' opinions on the 14th Five Year Plan online. The 14th Five Year Plan fully embodies the top-level design from formulation to content. At the same time, it also has a solid mass and social foundation.

Now why do you pay attention to the 14th Five Year Plan? Apart from what I said just now, it is an important historical stage of two hundred years. More importantly, we are now looking at the internal and external environment of China's economic development, which has undergone major changes.

For example, in the external environment, a few politicians have gone against globalization, trade protection, etc., especially since this year, facing the COVID-19 epidemic, which has made the world's economic and political issues more complex.

Now we can see that all the goals of the "13th Five Year Plan" can be achieved successfully. There is no problem for us to achieve a moderately prosperous society in all respects. It is precisely at this historical stage that China's economic and social development has entered a new era. The most important sign of this new era is that the major contradictions in our society have changed. Now, after decades of development, the main contradiction has become to meet the growing needs of the people for a better life. This beautiful life has very important and rich connotation. The whole "14th Five Year Plan" is to constantly meet the growing needs of the people for a better life.

How can we meet the people's needs for a better life? We should strive to form a new development pattern, which is to take the domestic circulation as the main body, and the international and domestic double circulation promote each other. What is the core of this? That is, we should put the starting point and attribution point of the whole economic work first on meeting our domestic needs and satisfying the people's good life.

host: Mr. Gui Gui, in combination with your previous work interviews, what do you think can be expected during the "14th Five Year Plan"?

Zhang Guigui: I think we should first divide the industries and industries into big ones. Let's talk about agriculture first. Agriculture has entered a well-off society. Now it is just the connecting point between the preceding and the following. We are entering the key node of rural revitalization. In the future, agriculture will flourish, farmers will be rich, and rural areas will develop. In addition, the manufacturing industry. China was originally the world manufacturing base, and will really become a powerful platform for manufacturing in the future.

        Yao Jingyuan What Gui Gui just said is an important part of our "14th Five Year Plan". Starting with his first question, he talked about agriculture. We have more than one billion people, and the biggest problem is to eat. This year, facing the impact and influence of the COVID-19 epidemic and the complicated international situation, we proposed "six guarantees", among which the most important is to ensure national food security. This year we have a bumper harvest of summer grain and early rice, an increase of 4.5 billion jin over last year. Now the autumn grain in the north has begun to be harvested. The best rice is in Heilongjiang and has also been harvested. It is now predicted that this year's grain output will increase by about 10 billion jin compared with that of last year, probably more than 1.3 trillion jin. This is the highest level in history.

In terms of our own agriculture, we should also see the existing problems. For example, the level of organization, scale, mechanization and science still needs more efforts and strength to organize professional cooperatives, support large grain growers, and increase investment in agricultural science and technology. Agricultural development has made important achievements in the 13th Five Year Plan, and the 14th Five Year Plan remains the focus. We should further consolidate the foundation of agriculture, hold the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land, maintain stable and high grain production, especially meet the people's needs for a better life, and vigorously develop green food and ecological agriculture in agriculture.

host: This is the reason why food is stable and the world is safe. Let's talk about industry. We already have the most comprehensive industrial manufacturing system in the world. What do you think is the space for further improvement?

Yao Jingyuan: After decades of efforts, China's industry is now sound in the industrial chain and supply chain. According to international standards, industry is divided into 41 major categories, 191 medium categories and 525 sub categories. Now there is only one country in the world with a complete range of large, medium, small categories, namely China.

The impact of the epidemic is so great that the "six guarantees" put forward to ensure the stability of the industrial chain and supply chain. We found that an enterprise resumed work and production, but may stop later, because its upstream or downstream did not resume work and production. Therefore, the resumption of production is not a problem for an enterprise, but an industrial chain.

Under the impact of such a pandemic on the whole world, China took the lead in getting rid of the impact of the epidemic and recovering its economy because of its sound industrial chain and supply chain. In fact, this is what we have always stressed: China's economy is resilient. What is resilience? Resilience is the ability to resist risks. When we first returned to work and production after overcoming the epidemic, we proposed to ensure the industrial chain and supply chain, which is exactly what we have been equipped with in recent decades. From this perspective, it is also a very important foundation for our industry.

China's economy was close to 100 trillion yuan last year, and this year it will certainly exceed 100 trillion yuan. Last year, China's economy accounted for 16% of the total world economy and contributed 30% to world economic growth. In addition to China's positive economic growth this year, all major economies in the world are now in recession. It should be said that we will achieve very good results in the year when the 13th Five Year Plan ends.

However, on this basis, we still need to see the gap in industry. During the "14th Five Year Plan" period, we should work hard to solve the problem of weak core technology when the industrial chain is relatively sound.

The 14th Five Year Plan also focuses on new development concepts. The first of the new development concepts is innovation. We should take innovation as the first driving force. During the "14th Five Year Plan" period, development was still the first priority, which was to solve the problem of building a modern socialist power.

Development is the first priority, innovation is the first driving force, and talent is the first resource. Our current population, the working age population, is decreasing. In the seven years from 2012 to 2019, the labor force in our country has decreased by 26 million, averaging 3.7 million a year, and the aging is also accelerating. But on the issue of people, I still emphasize that, on the one hand, the number of working age population is decreasing, but the quality of labor force is improving. This year, there are 8.74 million college graduates, 500000 graduate students and 400000 small international students. How can we have so many talents? I went to graduate school in 1980, when there were only 3000 graduates nationwide. The quality of our population is improving, which is an advantage.

host: 1.4 billion people have access to better education, and the quality of the labor force will also improve. In addition, he has a certain consumption ability to solve the problem of demand in our large domestic market.

Yao Jingyuan: What is our greatest potential now? Of the 1.4 billion people who have achieved a well-off society in an all-round way, 400 million are middle-income groups. What is the concept of 400 million middle-income groups? The total population of the United States is more than 300 million, and that of Japan is more than 100 million. China's middle-income group is equivalent to the total population of the United States and Japan. Therefore, we have a huge domestic market and strong domestic demand potential. It is vital that the 14th Five Year Plan be built on such a basis.

host: On the one hand, it is to meet the needs of the people for a better life. On the other hand, it is also based on the judgment of the international and domestic situation, especially the new characteristics and advantages of our domestic resource endowment at this stage.

Yao Jingyuan: Not 20 years ago, not even 40 years ago. Because at that time, our strong domestic demand market had not yet formed, and our food and clothing had not yet been solved, what consumption capacity did we have? But today, we have a super large domestic market, a strong domestic demand potential, a complete industrial chain and supply chain industrial system, and our agriculture has basically been able to guarantee our national security in terms of quantity.

Before 1949, China was a semi colonial and semi feudal country. But now, in this industrial revolution, the Internet, artificial intelligence, big data, 5G technology, etc., we have reached the forefront in many fields. Therefore, our overall economic and social development plan is based on the establishment of a new platform for China's economy during the "13th Five Year Plan". This platform can be summed up as a comprehensive well-off society. The comprehensive well-off society is not only how much money people have in their pockets, but also our wealth of knowledge. Of course, it also includes green water and green mountains, which are very important.

Green industry will have greater development space. Looking back on the achievements of the 13th Five Year Plan, I heard from the most ordinary people, what do you think Beijing has changed the most? They say air quality changes the most. It was difficult to buy air purifiers in those days. Who still uses air purifiers now? They are all idle there. Obviously, this is an important achievement of the 13th Five Year Plan, and the 14th Five Year Plan will make greater efforts in this regard.

host: The development of the "13th Five Year Plan", including the previous five-year plans, has laid a good foundation and created strong conditions for our "14th Five Year Plan". What challenges do we still face in implementing the 14th Five Year Plan? What other weaknesses need to be repaired?

Yao Jingyuan: The "14th Five Year Plan" is based on the fact that the "13th Five Year Plan" has already achieved a well-off society in an all-round way, and we have reached a high starting point and a good foundation. However, the task is still very arduous, and it does bring us new contradictions and challenges.

For example, in the past, China's economic development was described as "following", that is, people run in front and we follow, as long as we can catch up or faster. Now it is not a matter of following up. The complex international environment we face requires us to focus our work and focus on the domestic cycle. Of course, I think from the historical perspective of China, any crackdown or blockade is a good thing for China to a certain extent, which can make us more enthusiastic and enterprising. Therefore, during the "14th Five Year Plan" period, we should increase our efforts to address some weaknesses and solve problems in some important areas with the whole nation's efforts.

host: There are still some weaknesses in some areas.

Yao Jingyuan: We should also make efforts to obtain employment. Of course, full employment is a theoretical concept. We should try our best to reduce the unemployment rate. There are also medical care, education, and a series of issues we have just mentioned, which give our people a sense of gain in the need for a better life. After five years of the "14th Five Year Plan", it is very important to let everyone really feel that they have gained a sense of the need for a better life.

host: What's Mr. Zhang's opinion on this?

Zhang Guigui: During the "14th Five Year Plan" period, I think there are several key points that should be included: we must adhere to the overall leadership of the Party, adhere to the people as the center, adhere to the people as the main body, safeguard the fundamental interests of the people, and improve people's well-being. Build a new development pattern, effectively change the development mode, and promote quality, efficiency and power changes; We must actively deepen reform and opening up, which is an irreversible trend. We should strengthen the major measures of reform and opening up that are conducive to improving the efficiency of resource allocation and mobilizing the enthusiasm of the whole society; We must adhere to systematic management, focus on consolidating the foundation, promoting advantages, reinforcing weaknesses, strengths and weaknesses, and focus on preventing and resolving major risk crisis challenges.

Yao Jingyuan: Gui Gui said it was important to strengthen the Party's overall leadership over the whole economic and social development work during the "14th Five Year Plan". The ultimate goal is to focus on the people.

On the one hand, we should give full play to our advantages; on the other hand, we should find out our weaknesses and concentrate on making up for them. This also involves the layout of the entire productive forces and the planning of land space. For example, we have determined during the "13th Five Year Plan" period that the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area is in the south, the Yangtze River Delta integration is in the north, and the Yangtze River development strategy is up along the Yangtze River. Last month, the central government approved the dual city economy of Chengdu and Chongqing. Further north, Beijing Tianjin Hebei integration; Further north is the revitalization of the Northeast. There will be some strengthening and major measures for these major productivity layouts.

host: In recent years, our business environment, including government governance capacity, has been constantly improved. What can we expect from optimizing the business environment?

Yao Jingyuan: When it comes to the achievements of reform and opening up in the past 40 years, we should not only look at the growth of GDP. It is a wealth that millions or even more entrepreneurs have been beaten and honed in the market economy in recent decades. As far as our basic qualities are concerned, Chinese entrepreneurs have completely reached the international level.

host: Among the Fortune 500, we have the largest number of enterprises.

Yao Jingyuan: Second, we have trained or tempered a large number of government officials at all levels who understand the market economy, can follow the market rules and are good at playing the role of government in the market economy, which is also very important. These two principles should be important conditions for us to do well in the 14th Five Year Plan.

At the beginning of the 14th Five Year Plan, our next centennial goal is to solve high-quality problems, and there are indeed many new topics we need to learn.

host: Hone in difficulties and grow under pressure. With so many uncertainties this year, the Bureau of Statistics recently released the report card of economic growth in the third quarter, which turned from negative to positive. What policies have played a role?

Yao Jingyuan: Under the influence of the epidemic, our national economy grew by negative 6.8% in the first quarter of this year. What is the concept of negative 6.8%? It has never been like this since China had national economic accounting. It is the lowest point. At that time, the profit of industrial enterprises nationwide was negative 38%, and 36% of our 340000 enterprises above designated size were in deficit. During the seven days of the Spring Festival last year, the box office revenue of film tickets was 5.8 billion yuan, and during the Spring Festival this year, the box office revenue of film tickets was zero. In the seven days of the Spring Festival last year, the catering industry and the retail sales of commodities in the whole society reached one trillion yuan. This year, all the New Year's Eve dinners were finally withdrawn. So what we encountered was an unprecedented impact.

In the face of this shock, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have adopted unprecedented policies. For example, one of the fiscal policies is to increase the deficit rate. Last year, the deficit rate was 2.8%, and this year it was 3.6%. This is a sum of money. For the second sum of money, one trillion yuan of special national debt will be issued. The third is to increase the special debt of local governments. These three sums of money add up to 8.5 trillion yuan. There are also 2.5 trillion yuan of tax and fee cuts for enterprises, which adds up to 11 trillion yuan. The financial policy is unprecedented. During my research in Zhejiang, enterprises generally reported that this year is the most affordable year for the state's policies on enterprises over the years.

To grasp the macro economy, how can we see this complicated national economic activity? Four indicators should be grasped: first, look at the economic growth rate. The overall performance of the economic growth rate is negative 6.8% in the first quarter, positive 3.2% in the second quarter, positive 4.9% in the third quarter, which is rising quarter by quarter. The average growth rate in the first three quarters is 0.7% in real terms.

Second, to grasp the macro economy, we should grasp the employment or unemployment rate, which is the most important principle of economics. We are now investigating the unemployment rate. In December last year, the unemployment rate in China was 4.9%, and in February this year it was 6.2%.

Someone told me that the unemployment rate has only risen by more than one percentage point in the investigation of such a big epidemic, isn't it inaccurate? I am sure, what is the concept of the unemployment rate rising by one percentage point in China? From December last year to February this year, the number of unemployed people in two months increased by more than five or six million. Is this still a decimal? Not a decimal. Therefore, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have made it clear that "six stabilities" and "six guarantees" put "ensuring employment" first.

We often talk about macroeconomic policies. Generally speaking, there are only two macroeconomic policies in textbooks, one is fiscal policy and the other is monetary policy. However, we have added one policy, which is active and preferential employment policy. By the end of the third quarter, we have now achieved 99.8% of the planned new jobs for the whole year. How hard it is!

Third, look at prices and inflation levels. In the first quarter of this year, in January and December, due to the impact of the epidemic, the overall CPI price level rose to 5.8%, double that of last year, which worried everyone. But now we see that our control target for January September is 3.3%, and this year it is within 3.5%. There are still two months left now. I think it is no problem for us to control the target at the beginning of the year.

Fourth, look at the balance of payments. People are worried about the balance of payments. Can exports go out with such a big epidemic? As a result, most people did not expect that China's exports would have such a good situation this year. Our import and export growth of 7.5% in the third quarter, both import and export, is the best level for a quarter. So we still maintained a trade surplus of 2.3 trillion yuan, and the balance of payments exceeded 3.1 trillion dollars. The balance of payments is also good.

Look at the macro economy, no matter which country's economy, look at these four indicators: economic growth rate, unemployment rate, price rise rate, balance of payments. These four indicators fully demonstrate that China's economy has overcome the epidemic, rebounded steadily, and maintained a sustained positive state.

I expect that if we forecast the fourth quarter, China's economy will continue to maintain a good growth. I expect that the fourth quarter will definitely be above 5%, because the third quarter is 4.9%. In this way, on average throughout the year, our entire economy can remain around 2%. If we can achieve 2% or so, this is an important achievement that has not come easily.

host: Thank you very much, Mr. Yao Jingyuan and Mr. Zhang Guigui, for their sharing today. That's all for the interview. Thank you for watching. Goodbye!

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