Caofeidian District in Tangshan, Hebei Province has been designated by the Beijing municipal government and Hebei authorities to be the demonstration area for promoting the collaborative development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province.

 

A report highlighting national strategies including the “One Belt, One Road” initiative and the collaborative development of Beijing, Tianjin Municipality and Hebei Province and the Yangtze River economic belt, has found they will optimize China’s economic development in 2015.
 

The report was in the Blue Book of China’s Economy (Spring): Analysis on the Prospect of China’s Economy (2015) released in Beijing on April 28. The blue book elaborated on the benefits the three strategies aim to bring to China’s economy.

Implementation of the strategies are expected to broaden all-round cooperation among eastern, central and western regions of China, promoting urbanization and adjustment of the urban-rural structure, and form a new economic growth pattern, economic belts and city clusters. The strategies are also expected to enhance national and international economic interconnection and communication, realizing comprehensive reform and opening-up in areas along coasts, rivers and borders in China, according to the report.

China’s implementation of the strategies can increase investment and boost consumption, giving full play to both these functions in economic development.

China’s implementation of its three national strategies can improve resource allocation and promote economic innovation, upgrading and efficiency. It is of long-term significance for sustaining economic growth, building a moderately prosperous society, overcoming the middle-income trap, grasping and extending the period of strategic opportunity, and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
 

The blue book forecasts that China’s economic growth rate will be around 7 percent in 2015, a drop of 0.4 percent from last year. Employment is expected to remain at a reasonable level.
 

Growth in the tertiary industry is expected to further increase, fixed asset investment will continue to slow down, consumption growth will steadily grow, trade will increase slowly, inflation will further ease and income growth will slow, according to the blue book.
 

From 2016 to 2020, economic growth will be spurred by the three national strategies and the launch of the central government’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020).
 

Focusing on 2015, the blue book recommended that the government adopt a series of regulating policies and measures. The government should pay more attention to the labor market, increasing incomes and improve the mechanism for income growth. It should also carry out reform to the capital market, opening channels for transforming capital revenue into people’s property income, the blue book recommended.
 

Scholars at the blue book’s launch ceremony noted that the economic slowdown is part of a normal cycle, attributing China’s current situation to the lack of a new growth point and capital shortfall.
 

They proposed that the government take active macro-economic control measures to stabilize economic growth, reduce industrial structural inflation by destocking and resolving production overcapacity, further expand opening-up to increase foreign trade, streamline administration and delegate power to the lower levels to stimulate private investment.
 

The blue book called for strengthening of fiscal policy, increasing investment in infrastructure, progressing reform of the taxation system and further cutting taxes for small and medium-sized enterprises. It also recommended accelerating interest rate marketization, improving the interest rate system and effectively lowering the cost of social financing.