III. Major Tasks for 2012

1. Promoting steady and robust economic development

Expanding domestic demand, particularly consumer demand, which is essential to ensuring China's long-term, steady, and robust economic development, is the focus of our economic work this year.

We will work hard to expand consumer demand. We will move faster to set up a permanent mechanism for boosting consumption. We will vigorously adjust income distribution, increase the incomes of low- and middle-income groups, and enhance people's ability to consume. We will improve policies that encourage consumption. We will vigorously develop elderly care, domestic, property management, medical and healthcare services. We will encourage consumer spending on cultural activities, tourism, and fitness; and implement the system of paid vacations. We will actively develop new forms of consumption such as online shopping; support and guide the consumption of green goods such as environmentally friendly building materials, water-saving sanitation products, and energy-efficient vehicles; and expand consumer credit. We will improve the urban-rural logistics system and infrastructural facilities, such as roads and parking lots, strengthen supervision over product quality and safety, improve the consumption environment, and safeguard consumers' legitimate rights and interests.

We will continue to improve the investment structure. We will maintain the steady growth of investment and use investment to promote consumption and vice versa. We will fully implement the Guidelines of the State Council on Encouraging and Guiding the Sound Development of Nongovernmental Investment and adopt specific operating rules for their implementation. We will strengthen the role of government investment in guiding adjustment of the economic structure, ensure funding for key projects that are under construction or expansion, and begin construction on major national projects in an orderly manner. We will tighten standards on market access and the screening and approval process relating to land, credit, energy conservation, environmental protection, safety, and quality; and strengthen supervision and inspections of major projects, particularly those undertaken by governments and state-owned firms, to improve the quality of and returns on such investments.