The nine major tasks 2014

Rural development

Agriculture is a sector vital to ensuring China's stability and maintaining the people's well-being. China must attach the utmost importance to doing a good job in work related to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers in all the government's endeavors and accelerate agricultural modernization in order to ensure China's food security and increase farmers' incomes.

China will ensure that cultivated land area does not fall below the red line of 120 million hectares and improve the quality of cultivated land, increase overall agricultural production capacity, and guarantee our basic self-sufficiency in terms of cereal grains and absolute grain security.

It will strengthen policies to support and protect agriculture.

It will raise the minimum purchase prices of wheat and rice, increase agricultural subsidies and strengthen the foundation of agricultural and rural development.

The government will give high priority to resolving problems facing children, women and elderly people who are left behind in rural villages by rural migrant workers working in cities, and adhere to and improve the basic rural management system and grant farmers more property rights.

Urbanization

China will implement a people-centered urbanization program that integrates the development of industrialization, IT application and agricultural modernization. Priority is attached to granting urban residency to rural migrant workers in cities.

The household registration - hukou - system will be reformed to help them to obtain urban residency, and their children will be entitled to go to school where they actually live. The government will diversify investment and financing to share the costs associated with such reform.

Rebuilding rundown city areas and urban villages is another focus, so that Chinese cities will take on a new look through measures such as using urban construction land more efficiently, giving more emphasis to public transport development, historical sites, sites of cultural interest and protection of the natural landscape.

Urbanization in central and western regions will also be stepped up, with the government helping to foster new industry clusters, and speeding up infrastructure construction such as water conservancy, energy and municipal services in those regions, to help rural migrant workers find employment in nearby urban areas.

Economic reform

China will reform its science and technology management system to encourage businesses to play a more active role in technological innovation. A trial reform policy will include more science parks in the national innovation demonstration zone, in which equity-based incentives are provided for making innovations.

Government spending will be increased on cutting-edge and key technologies, as well as improving public science and technology service platforms and mechanisms. China will also implement a talent development plan to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights and link researchers' pay with the market value of their research.

Industrial structural adjustment will rely on supporting growth in developing production-oriented service industries, and encouraging business startups. China will also promote the full integration of IT application with industrialization, equipment depreciation and make traditional industries more competitive.

This year, China will strive to make irreversible cuts to outdated production capacity, while strengthening environmental protection and energy consumption standards.

Egalitarian society

The government will dedicate itself to the building of an egalitarian society, by taking active measures to coordinate the country's socioeconomic development. Quality education will be accessible to school-age children in the country's less-developed central and western regions, areas that have been plagued by the lack of good teachers and sound infrastructure. The country's higher education institutions will be required to further open their doors to underprivileged students from poorer regions. Meanwhile, universities will also be given more say on core matters such as enrollment. Vocational education will be further developed and the establishment of private schools encouraged.

Medical reform will remain a priority for the government, which aims to consolidate the national basic medical insurance system by integrating the one for rural residents with that for non-working urban residents. Government subsidies will be increased, and the capacity to prevent and treat major communicable diseases will be strengthened.

In terms of social governance, decision-making at the village and community level will be made more transparent, with government at a higher level exerting effective monitoring.

People's well-being

Fully realizing that people's well-being is the foundation of social stability and prosperity, the government will work toward a more harmonious society. Topping its agenda is increasing employment opportunities and the provision of adequate housing to those badly in need. Business startups will be given incentives, bearing in mind the expected growth in the number of college graduates. Efforts will also be made to provide employment to laid-off workers and migrant workers from rural areas.

Reform of the income distribution system will be deepened, with collective wage bargaining encouraged. Performance-based salary reform will also be undertaken within government bodies and public institutions, and the gap between urban and rural incomes is expected to be narrowed.

Reform will also extend to China's social security system, to help society's most vulnerable feel more secure. Rural residents, elderly people, the disabled and people working in hazardous conditions will be given full consideration.

More government-subsidized housing will be built, and demand for housing based on speculation and investment will be curbed.

Environmental protection

Smog is affecting larger parts of China and environmental pollution has become a major problem, which is nature's red-light warning against the model of inefficient and blind development.

The government will fight pollution by focusing on the following key areas: improving the industrial structure, raising energy efficiency, reducing vehicle exhaust emissions, and preventing and monitoring wind-borne dust. The plans will start by reducing PM10 and PM2.5 emissions, and a clean water action plan will also be implemented.

In order to strengthen energy conservation and emission reduction and impose a ceiling on total energy consumption, the government will continue to raise the proportion of electricity generated by non-fossil fuel, develop smart grids and promote the balanced distribution of energy resources, encourage the development of wind and solar power, and start construction of a number of hydropower and nuclear power projects.

The government will also implement major ecological projects to return grazing land to grassland, protect natural forests, prevent and control sandstorms, conserve water and soil and prevent and reverse the expansion of stony deserts.