BEIJING (Reuters) - China released a raft of detailed reform plans on Friday, promising sweeping changes to the economy and the country's social fabric as it seeks to unleash new sources of growth after three decades of breakneck expansion show signs of slowing.
Following are key points from the document, released by the official Xinhua news agency.
ON HOUSEHOLD REGISTRATION SYSTEM
"(We will) speed up the reform of the household registration (hukou) system, completely lift registration restrictions in towns and small cities, gradually relax restrictions in medium sized cities, and decide the criteria for settling in large cities in a reasonable way. Strictly control the population of mega-cities.
"(We will) steadily roll out basic urban social services to all long-term residents, and allow rural residents who switch to a city registration to become completely integrated within the housing and social security system.
"(We will) strictly rationalise the supply and use of land for construction, to improve the efficiency of land use in cities."
ON RESOURCE PRICING
"(We will) promote a pricing mechanism that is mainly decided by the market. We should hand over prices that can be set by market forces to the market. The government should not make inappropriate interventions.
"(We will) push forward price reforms in sectors including water, oil, natural gas, power, transportation and telecommunications.
"Government-set prices will be mainly applied to key public utilities and public services. Such pricing must be transparent and monitored by the public.
"(We will) improve pricing mechanisms for agricultural products and emphasize the market's role in deciding prices."
ON THE YUAN CURRENCY AND INTEREST RATES
"(We will) improve the market-based yuan exchange rate formation mechanism and speed up the marketisation of interest rates. We will increase the level of convertibility in cross-border capital and banking transactions
"(We will) establish a robust and prudent overall management framework for foreign debt and capital flows and speed up the implementation of renminbi capital account convertability."
ON STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES
"(We will) encourage non-public firms to participate in SOE reform.
"Cross-shareholding and fusion of various types of capital, including state-owned capital, collectively-owned capital and private capital, is an important part of the basic economic system.
"(We will) allow non state-owned capital to purchase shares in projects invested by state-owned capital.
"(We will) improve our management systems for state-owned assets and improve supervision of state-owned assets mainly via capital management.
"State capital should serve the state's strategic objectives, in key areas such as public services, developing important and forward-looking strategic industries, protecting the environment, supporting scientific and technological development and ensuring state security.
"(We will) transfer some state assets to the social security fund and raise the proportion of dividends paid by state assets to the public to 30 percent by 2020 to be used for social security and improving people's livelihoods.
"In monopoly industries where state-owned assets continue to hold shares and operate, (we) will conduct reforms including separating government functions from enterprise and capital management and granting franchise operations, and will conduct government supervision.
"(We will) push forward the market-oriented allocation of public resources and further eliminate administrative monopolies. We will push forward disclosure of important information by SOEs." (Beijing newsroom)
