SCIO briefing on 2016 Govt Work Report

China Times:

What’s your comment on Premier Li Keqiang’s words regarding the Taiwan issue, especially his statement of safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity, hoping that Taiwanese compatriots share our overall national interests and build cross-Strait shared future? Such statements are relatively strong. Does the Mainland government want to deal with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) after May 20 by saying so? Meanwhile, the Mainland government has vowed to continuously promote economic, trade and cultural communication between the two sides. We can see that on the one hand, the Mainland government holds a strong political perspective; on the other hand, it vows to deepen economic and cultural communication with Taiwan. How can we interpret these statements?

Huang Shouhong:

As for the Taiwan issue, the government report released by Premier Li Keqiang has been covered comprehensively; you can compare this year’s report with previous years’ reports. Premier Li emphasized that the government will insist on its policy towards Taiwan, adhere to the '1992 Consensus' as a political foundation, resolutely contain 'Taiwan independence' secessionist activities in any form, safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and maintain peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and peace and stability across the Strait. This is still our main attitude regarding the Taiwan issue. As for our attitude after Taiwan’s election, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council has already elaborated on it. For more detailed information, you can contact them.

ITAR-TASS:

My question may be a little bit sudden and difficult to answer right now. Today’s government report says China's fixed-asset investment had a yearly growth of 10.5 percent. However, there is no figure for last year represented in the report; some media outlets have reported that the total number of last year was 55.159 trillion yuan (US$8.47 trillion). There may be some mistake, since the number is nearly equal to China’s GDP. If you can’t answer the question right now, could you tell us the exact number later as the number has been used by lots of famous media outlets? If the number is correct, could you explain why it is so big for China’s investment?

Huang Shouhong:

A few days ago, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) published the Statistical Communiqué of China on 2015 National Economic and Social Development. Last year, China’s total investment in fixed assets reached 56 trillion yuan (US$8.6 trillion), up 11.8 percent year on year. The total investment in fixed assets consists of many areas such as infrastructure investments, manufacturing investments, real estate investments, government investments, social investments and enterprise investments especially. However, the “investments” mentioned here are different from gross fixed capital formation when using expenditure approach to calculate GDP. Last year, total investment in fixed assets reached 56 trillion yuan (US$8.6 trillion). It seems to be rather large in scale, but it will take several years for the investments to have an effect. That is because the investment contains a circle and the productivity brought by investment will be increased in later years. China is now at a rapid development period of industrialization, it is necessary to maintain a number of investments. However, in recent years, investment growth decreased, while the pulling effect of consumption on economic growth was obviously enhanced.