Chinese premier chairs State Council executive meeting

BEIJING, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- A State Council executive meeting presided over by Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Friday called for strengthening confidence and stepping up policy implementation to ensure China fulfils its major economic and social development targets for the year.

The meeting urged faster progress on the construction and implementation of major projects and the country's "six networks" of infrastructure, covering water, power, computing, communications, urban underground pipelines and logistics networks.

It called for supporting enterprises in expanding investment in equipment upgrades and intangible assets, and strengthening links of consumption between online and offline markets, as well as urban and rural markets, to foster a virtuous cycle between investment and consumption.

File photo: Xinhua

The meeting called for making full use of various policy funds, ensuring timely and full disbursement of payments to primary-level authorities and enterprises, and better coordinating fiscal and financial policies in boosting domestic demand.

It stressed the need to keep employment stable, prevent risks and safeguard people's livelihoods, calling for stronger employment services for key groups and employment assistance for graduates in difficulty.

The meeting urged intensified efforts to identify and address workplace safety risks to prevent major accidents, as well as continued efforts to defuse risks related to local government debt and small and medium-sized financial institutions.

It called for improving mechanisms to stabilize the capital market, enhancing the stock market's inherent stability and promoting the stable and sound development of the capital market.

The meeting stressed the importance of studying economic priorities for next year and strengthening policy coordination across years to sustain positive economic momentum.

The meeting also heard a report on social assistance work, and called for further improvement to the social assistance system, noting that social assistance is an important institutional arrangement for ensuring a basic safety net for people's livelihoods.

It underlined the significance of expanding the scope of social assistance to meet new needs and strengthening recipients' intrinsic motivation for self-development, while urging efforts to promote service-based social assistance, such as caregiving and other forms of support, to give people in need a greater sense of gain.