To achieve success in our work to promote economic and social development during the period of the 13th Five-Year Plan and finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, we must keep to the following three guidelines:

First, give top priority to development

Development is of primary importance to China and is the key to solving every problem we face. During the next five years, we must take particular care to avoid falling into the “middle-income trap,” and we need to address an increasing number of problems and risks. Pursuing development is like sailing against the current: you either forge ahead or drift downstream. We must remain committed to economic development as our central task, endeavor to promote sound development, and respond effectively to risks and challenges so as to ensure that China’s economy, like a gigantic ship, breaks the waves and goes the distance.

Second, make major headway in carrying out structural reform

At present, we face problems both with aggregate supply and demand and with our structures. The structural problems are more acute, and reform should be conducted to adjust these structures. While working to achieve an appropriate expansion of aggregate demand, we need to give particular emphasis to structural reform on the supply side, reducing supply in some areas while increasing it in others. This means that we need to reduce ineffective and lower-end supply while increasing effective and medium- and high-end supply, increase the supply of public goods and services, ensure that development is driven by both supply and demand, and improve total-factor productivity. This should enable us to unleash and develop productive forces.

Third, accelerate the shift in driving forces for development

In the course of economic development, it is only natural that old drivers of growth are replaced by new ones. As conventional driving forces weaken, it is critical that new driving forces emerge and that the conventional ones undergo a transformation so that new twin engines are formed; only then is it possible to upgrade the economy and achieve sustainable growth. This is the crucial period in which China currently finds itself, and during which we must build up powerful new drivers in order to accelerate the development of the new economy. We need to move faster to develop new technologies, industries, and forms of business, boost the development of a sharing economy through institutional innovations, create sharing platforms, and develop emerging industry clusters such as high-tech and modern service industry clusters, thus creating strong new engines. We will use network-based information technology and other modern technologies to drive changes in models of production, management, and marketing, create new industry chains, supply chains, and value chains, and transform and upgrade conventional drivers, thus injecting them with new vitality.

Ultimately, it is the people who are the inexhaustible source of power that drives development. A workforce of over 900 million, of whom over 100 million have received higher education or are professionally trained: this is our greatest resource and strength. Obviously, replacing old drivers of growth with new ones and achieving a shift in development toward greater reliance on human resources, human capital, and innovation is a process of painful adjustment. But it is at the same time an upgrading process with great promise. We just have to get through this process, and we can, without question, reinvigorate the economy and ensure its dynamic growth.

Looking ahead to the next five years, we are fully confident that we will finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects within the set time frame, that our people will enjoy better lives, and that there will be an even brighter future for the cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.