Premier Li stresses tax, fee cuts to stimulate market vitality

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (C) presides over a work conference on tax cuts and fee reductions in Jinan, capital city of east China's Shandong Province, May 24, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday stressed tax cuts and fee reductions to stimulate market vitality, ensure employment and achieve a steady and healthy economic development.

Li made the remarks while presiding over a work conference in Jinan, capital city of east China's Shandong Province.

Senior officials from Shandong, Jiangsu, Fujian, Henan and Guizhou provinces attended the conference.

They said that tax cuts and fee reductions had greatly alleviated financial burdens on market entities, and increased household incomes. The policy has played a key role in ensuring stable expectations and economic growth.

Li said hundreds of millions of market entities were "pillars" of keeping employment stable and also "engines" of driving economic growth.

Although tax and fee cuts will reduce fiscal revenues in the near term, they will increase companies' confidence in investment and development, help boost employment, ensure sustainable economic growth and expanded sources of tax revenues, he said.

Governments at all levels should work together to ensure that all industries see their financial burdens decrease, Li said, while stressing that prices of agricultural production means should be kept stable.

Tax and fee reductions will create big pressure on government budgets at all levels. To support the lightening of the burden on enterprises, governments at all levels must tighten their belts and find workable means of raising funds, Li said.

He urged local governments to spend thriftily and use the saved capital to support the construction of key projects and the improvement of people's livelihoods.