2. Concentrating on core issues, emphasizing key points, and achieving positive results in promoting the implementation of the major decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee

Faced with the severe impact of the global financial crisis, the Central Committee sized up the situation and responded calmly by adopting a proactive fiscal policy and a moderately easy monetary policy, and fully implementing and constantly enriching and improving the package plan and policies and measures for responding to the impact of the crisis. The Standing Committee concentrated on core issues, emphasized key points, and made promoting the implementation of the major decisions and arrangements of the Central Committee the top priority of NPC oversight work. We exercised our oversight functions and powers in accordance with the law, applied a variety of oversight methods, and supervised and supported the State Council, Supreme People's Court, and Supreme People's Procuratorate in carrying out their work on the basis of the targets and tasks set forth in their work reports, in order to ensure that the year's tasks for economic and social development were accomplished successfully.

1) We strengthened oversight of economic work. Maintaining steady and rapid economic development was the foremost task in our economic work last year. It was especially important to improve the NPC's oversight of economic work due to the special circumstances under which our economic development encountered acute difficulties. At each meeting of the Standing Committee last year, we heard and deliberated reports of the State Council on its work in this area, and the Standing Committee and special committees carried out investigations and studies closely related to this issue.

Given that the central government's investment plan was not only on a large scale and wide-ranging, but the time for implementing it was tight and the work load heavy, in order to ensure its effective implementation the Standing Committee, on the basis of advice from NPC deputies, chose four topics and launched three-month investigations and studies on projects to improve people's wellbeing such as low-income housing, education, and health; technological upgrading; innovations in science and technology; and water conservancy. The reports on these investigations and studies were heard and deliberated together with the related work report of the State Council at the Standing Committee meeting held in October. Investigation groups of the Standing Committee fully affirmed the results achieved by all localities and departments in conscientiously implementing the central government's investment plan. At the same time, to counter outstanding problems, such as the preparatory work of some projects not being done well, supporting funds not being fully available, local governments being saddled with risky debts, progress being uneven, and projects being launched indiscriminately, we promptly discussed these problems with local governments and relevant departments of the State Council by means of forums and exchanges, and submitted preliminary investigative reports to the State Council to help relevant authorities improve their work, policies, and measures. We invited leading comrades of relevant departments of the State Council to attend the Standing Committee meeting in October to hear our comments and suggestions personally. During the meeting, members of the Standing Committee stated that to use investment to stimulate economic growth, we must stay firmly rooted in the present while looking ahead to the future, plan scientifically, and not try to do more than we are capable of; strictly maintain the orientation of investment and optimize the investment structure; and ensure local governments make supporting funds available, standardize management procedures, and strengthen supervision over investment to prevent redundant construction and make sure funds are used where they are most needed. After the meeting, we collated the comments and suggestions of Standing Committee members and other comrades attending the meeting as observers, and submitted them together with the investigative reports to the State Council to study and deal with them. We required that the State Council submit a written report to the Standing Committee on how it dealt with them by the end of this April. It must be stressed here that we conducted investigations and studies on the special topics and deliberated the related work report of the State Council during the implementation of the central government's investment plan, and that it was a useful attempt by the Standing Committee to increase the intensity and raise the level of its oversight work. It not only made the NPC's oversight work expeditious, but also enriched its methods of oversight work. In future, we will further review our experiences and continually improve.

The Standing Committee attached great importance to raising the quality and efficiency of economic growth and promoted economic restructuring and industrial upgrading. In addition to hearing and discussing the report on the implementation of the plan for national economic and social development in the first half of 2009, as is customary, we also made special arrangements to hear and deliberate reports of the State Council on transforming the pattern of economic development and restructuring the economy and on promoting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Members of the Standing Committee agreed that, owing to common efforts of the country from top to bottom, economic growth picked up each quarter in 2009, the economic turnaround gradually gained momentum, and overall economic development was better than expected. All this proved that the series of decisions, arrangements, policies, and measures made by the Central Committee to deal with the impact of the global financial crisis were correct, timely, and effective. Members of the Standing Committee stated that the serious difficulties encountered in China's economic development were both the result of the global financial crisis and a reflection of the problems of China's overall extensive pattern of development and an irrational economic structure; and that the global financial crisis makes the task of restructuring even more urgent. They emphasized that we need to correctly handle the relationships between maintaining economic growth and restructuring the economy, and between solving current difficulties and sustaining long-term development; set economic turnaround on a foundation of structural optimization and upgrading; and make responding to the impact of the global financial crisis the means by which we increase the sustainability of our development. First, we need to vigorously carry out technological upgrading in enterprises, with the focus on conserving energy, reducing its consumption, and developing a circular economy. Second, we need to strengthen technological innovation, accelerate R&D on high-end products, and upgrade industries and products. Third, we need to energetically develop emerging industries, with the focus on a green economy and a low-carbon economy, and foster new areas of economic growth.

Improving oversight of government budgets has always been an important aspect of the Standing Committee's oversight work. At the Standing Committee meeting in June last year, we heard and deliberated reports on the final central government budget for 2008 and the auditing work report, examined and approved the final budget for 2008, and discussed the implementation of the 2009 budget in the first five months of the year. Members of the Standing Committee noted that national revenue had declined significantly from January to May compared to the previous year, resulting in a serious discrepancy between revenue and expenditures, and making it extremely difficult to meet the budget targets for the whole year. In response to this, the State Council and its relevant departments should take this problem seriously and adopt more effective measures to solve it. First, they must conscientiously implement policies for structural tax reductions, support the development of enterprises, strengthen tax collection and management in accordance with the law, and strive to reverse the steady decline in fiscal revenue. At the same time, they must collect only prescribed taxes to avoid placing an unreasonable burden on enterprises. Second, they must use budgetary funds more effectively, strictly control the orientation of investment and policies, and ensure funding for key projects and crucial areas. At the same time, they must firmly practice austerity, refrain from taking on more than they could handle, act diligently and frugally in all their dealings, oppose extravagance and waste, avoid launching new projects indiscriminately, and never do things for appearance's sake. Third, they must press ahead with reform of the fiscal and taxation systems, set up a sound public finance system in which the financial resources of the central and local governments are commensurate with their respective responsibilities, standardize the transfer payment system, and promptly establish a mechanism to ensure adequate basic financial resources for county-level governments. At the same time, they must strictly enforce laws and regulations as well as economic and financial discipline, strengthen the oversight and supervision of key areas of revenue and expenditure, standardize budget preparation and implementation, and guard against financial risks.