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Premier Calls for Optimizing Industrial Structure
Premier Zhu Rongji has called for energetically optimizing and improving the industrial structure, stressing that readjusting and improving the industrial structure is the key to a strategic restructuring of China's economy.
Zhu made this remark in Beijing Monday while delivering a report on the Outline of the Tenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2001-2005) at the opening of the Fourth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress.
China should enhance its traditional industries with high, new and advanced technologies, Zhu said, urging to pay close attention to the restructuring and reform of traditional industries.
He noted that in these industries enterprises are the main entities, and they should be directed by the market and supported by technological advances. He proposed taking the following measures:
First, China needs to increase product variety, improve product quality, save energy, reduce waste, prevent and control pollution,and increase productivity. These measures are most important in energy, metallurgical, chemical, machinery, automobile, building materials, construction, textile and light industries. Support should be given to a number of key enterprises for technological renovation to improve their technology and equipment.
Second, China needs to speed up the development of universal, key and accessory technology that can stimulate structural advancement by depending on both domestic innovation and imported technology. It needs to stimulate equipment manufacturing and design and build complete plants of large, advanced and highly-efficient equipment urgently needed in China.
Third, in major industries, China needs to encourage the establishment of a number of large companies and enterprise groups through stock listing, merging, association and reorganization.
Such companies and groups need to have their own intellectual property rights, core products and a strong central leadership, and they should become key players and pillars in industrial readjustment and advancement.
Fourth, China needs to support and promote renovation of old industrial bases, fully utilizing their strong foundation and concentration of talent to raise their production levels. At the same time, the country needs to take economic, legal and necessary administrative measures to continue closing down plants and mines that produce shoddy goods, waste resources, cause serious pollution, or operate under unsafe conditions.
Outmoded and surplus production capacity needs to be abandoned or reduced. Relocation and reconstruction of these outmoded facilities will be prohibited. Enterprises that have been in the red for long with little hope of recovery and whose debts exceed assets should be allowed to go bankrupt, and mines with exhausted resources should be closed.
The premier called for developing new and high-tech industries,and using information technology to stimulate industrialization.
"In accordance with actual situations, we need to selectively stimulate development of new and high-tech industries such as information technology, bioengineering and materials science. We need to lend support to important high-tech projects, such as high-speed, wide-band information networks, key integrated circuits and new-type carrier rockets in order to strengthen China's new and high-tech industries on an overall as well as individual basis," he said.
He urged intensifying construction of water conservation, transportation, energy and other infrastructural facilities and attaching great importance to strategic issues concerning resources. China needs to put water conservation high on its work agenda, establish a rational pricing mechanism, comprehensively adopt water conservation technologies and measures, develop water-efficient industries, and raise the entire society's awareness of water conservation. he noted.
Prevention and control of water pollution should be strengthened, he stressed. "We need to expedite the planning and building of projects to divert water from the south to the north," he said.
The premier said that energy, oil in particular, is of strategic importance. Domestic development and production of oil can no longer keep pace with the needs of the country's economic and social development, resulting in an increasing imbalance between oil supply and demand, Zhu said.
"Therefore, we need to take all possible measures to conserve oil, accelerate exploration and exploitation of oil and natural gas resources, and make effective use of overseas resources," he said. China needs to institute a system for preserving strategic resources such as oil as soon as possible, he added.
China needs to vigorously carry forward the renovation of large coal mines, construct highly productive and efficient mines, and place special emphasis on the exploitation of clean coal, according to Zhu. While making full use of existing power-generating capacity, China needs to develop hydroelectric power and build large-scale thermal power plants near coal mines, reduce small thermal power stations, and moderately develop nuclear power,he said.
Emphasis should be placed on the development of all types of new energy, Zhu said, noting, "We should further reform the power management system, gradually allow power plants and grids to operate separately, and institute bidding for power supply."
Zhu urged accelerating the development of China's service industry. This is an important avenue for stimulating economic restructuring and increasing employment, he said.
He also called for actively developing modern service industries, such as information services, banking, accounting, consulting and law.
Up-to-date management and technology should be applied to renovate traditional service sectors, such as internal and foreign trade, transportation and municipal services, to improve their quality and efficiency, according the premier.
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