From Reuters:
China’s leaders pledged to let markets play a “decisive” role in the economy as they unveiled a reform agenda for the next decade on Tuesday, looking to secure new drivers of future growth.
China aims to achieve “decisive results” in its reform push by 2020, with economic changes in focus, the ruling Communist Party said in a communiqué released by state media at the end of a four-day conclave of its 205-member Central Committee.
The self-imposed deadline for progress – rare for Beijing to lay out in such clear terms – together with the creation of a top-level working group and an emphasis on “top-level design”, suggest a more decisive reform push by the administration of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang than under the previous leadership.
They must unleash new sources of growth as the economy, after three decades of breakneck expansion, begins to sputter, burdened by industrial overcapacity, piles of debt and eroding competitiveness.
“You should look back in history. When Deng Xiaoping started the reform and opening movement, he actually did something very similar in nature, creating a very powerful working group,” said Steve Wang, China chief economist with The Reorient Group in Hong Kong.
“These guys report direct into the power center of the Communist Party. This is definitely not something to be looked at as another layer of bureaucracy, this is something to speed things up, to make things more efficient.”
The FT has more:
In a further potentially radical step, the party also pledged to address the “two-tier” system of land ownership that prevents farmers from selling their land. This has long hampered them as they try to embark with their families on new lives in the country’s burgeoning cities. “Farmers should participate equally and enjoy the fruits of modernisation,” the communique said.
The declarations came at the end of the third plenum of the party’s 18th Central Committee, which brought together more than 370 of China’s most powerful men and women.
While the language of such party documents tends to be deliberately vague, leaving methods of implementation to government departments, the suggestion that the pricing of interest rates, land, energy and water would be more market-driven could have a profound effect on China’s economy.
“In the past they said the market played a ‘basic’ role,” said Ma Guangyuan, a Beijing-based economist. “This is a big step forward.”
Another potentially significant clause implies that the distinction between urban and rural land that can be used for construction will be eliminated, allowing cities to expand more rapidly and potentially entitling farmers to higher compensation when land is appropriated for development.
And that, more or less, is all we get for now from the Plenum.
