Key meeting stresses proper understanding of major issues in China's new development stage

The Chinese authorities have emphasized the need to establish a proper understanding of the country's major economic and development issues in a tone-setting economic meeting.

"As China enters a new stage of development, its internal and external environment has undergone profound changes. The country is faced with major theoretical and practical issues that need to be properly comprehended," read a statement released Friday after the annual Central Economic Work Conference.

The meeting stressed proper understanding of the strategic goal and pathways of realizing common prosperity.

The country should create and accumulate social wealth continuously, and at the same time avoid polarization.

To realize common prosperity, the nation should first "make a bigger and better cake" through joint efforts of the people, and then divide and distribute the cake properly through rational institutional arrangements, the statement said.

"This is a long historical process, and steady steps should be made toward this goal," it said.

China should strengthen the implementation of the job-first policy in its pursuit of high-quality development and better leverage the role of economic growth in boosting employment, according to the statement.

It stressed efforts to exert the role and function of wealth distribution, stick to the system in which distribution according to work is dominant, improve the policy where remuneration is distributed according to various factors of production, and enhance the role of taxation, social security and transfer payments.

Enterprises and social groups that have the intention and capability of participating in public-interest and charitable activities should be encouraged to do so, the statement said.

It said basic public services should be provided in a targeted manner in fields that concern people the most, such as education, healthcare, old-age care and housing.

Stressing the need to understand the nature of capital and its law of behavior, the meeting urged giving play to the positive role of capital, as a kind of production factor, while effectively reining in its negative effects.

China will strengthen its effective supervision of capital in accordance with the law and prevent its unchecked growth, according to the statement.

In terms of understanding the supply of primary goods, the meeting underlined the implementation of the conservation strategy.

Efforts will be made to enhance the resource production and support capacities, accelerate the development and application of leading technologies for the exploitation of resources including oil and gas, and speed up the establishment of a recycling and reuse system for waste.

More efforts should be made to properly understand, guard against and defuse major risks, according to the statement.

The country should do a good job of dealing with risks, improve the financial legal system, consolidate the responsibilities of local governments, financial regulators, industry regulators and other parties, and make enterprises responsible for resolving their own difficulties.

China should formulate policies to defuse risks and improve the mechanism for handling financial risks, the statement said.

Authorities also emphasized the need to have a proper understanding of the country's carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. Achieving the goals is intrinsic to advancing high-quality development, which demands unwavering efforts, the statement said.

The phasing out of traditional energy in China should be based on safe, reliable new-energy alternatives, according to the statement.

The country needs to strengthen the clean and efficient use of coal, increase the absorptive capacity of new energy, while optimizing the use of coal and new energy.

The meeting also decided that the newly-added renewable energy and energy used as raw materials would be excluded from the cap on total energy consumption, calling for an early shift from controlling the amount and intensity of energy consumption to controlling the amount and intensity of carbon emissions, as well as the early establishment of an incentive and constraint mechanism for pollution control and carbon reduction.