Guillermo Munro / China Daily

Deeper reforms

Reform is the top buzzword for China in 2014. China will deepen reforms in a number of fields. Reform will be carried out in the administrative system, such as further streamlining administration and delegating more power to lower-level governments.

China will attach great importance to reform of the fiscal and tax systems, including instituting a comprehensive, well-regulated, open and transparent budget system, increasing the proportion of general transfer payments, and speeding up ways to adjust power and spending responsibilities between central and local governments.

Reforms will also be advanced in the financial sector, including further liberalizing interest rates by granting financial institutions more power to set rates, promoting the establishment of small and medium-sized banks and other financial institutions, and the healthy development of Internet banking.

China will also enhance the vitality of economic entities under all forms of ownership, upholding and improving the basic economic system. It will improve the distribution and structure of the State-owned sector of the economy and deepen the development of mixed-ownership economic entities.

Wider opening

China will conduct wider and deeper opening in all fields, with regard to achieving high performance. China will foster a new open-economy system and advance a new round of opening-up to embrace the global market.

It will strive to make moves to remain a top choice for foreign investment. China will make full use of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and further open the nation's inland and border areas, and turn these areas into hotspots for opening-up.

China will also give priority to upgrading exports and promoting balanced growth in foreign trade. It will increase its competitiveness by expanding its overseas business presence. A host of measures will be taken in the management of outbound investment, and boosting the export of products, project contracting and labor services.

The nation will also engage in bilateral, multilateral and regional opening-up and cooperation in a coordinated way. It will actively participate in developing high-standard free trade areas; continue negotiations on investment agreements with the United States and the European Union; and accelerate free trade area negotiations with South Korea, Australia and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Domestic demand

Boosting domestic demand is both a major force driving economic growth and an important structural adjustment. China needs to fully leverage the basic role of consumption and the key role of investment, stimulate both supply and demand, and establish a permanent mechanism for increasing domestic demand.

In working to increase domestic demand, China will focus on boosting consumption.

China will enhance people's ability to consume by increasing their incomes, improve consumption policies, foster new areas of consumption and increase consumption of services.

It will deepen reform of distribution channels; remove all barriers to a nationwide unified market; cut distribution costs; and encourage the development of logistics, delivery and online shopping.

Regarding investment as the key to maintaining stable economic growth, China will accelerate reform of the investment and financing system, and encourage more parties to invest.

The central government's budgetary investment will rise to 457.6 billion yuan ($74 billion).