Chinese leaders concluded a high-profile annual economic conference on Wednesday and decided a slew of tasks facing the country's economy in 2008.

 

They are as follows:

 

-- The primary task of macroeconomic control is to prevent the economy from overheating and the current price rises led by foodstuff from evolving into "evident inflation".

 

-- The meeting decided to shift the country's monetary policy from "prudent", an approach China has followed for the last ten years, to "tight". But the change of policy must be made to secure a steady economic expansion.

 

-- Monetary policy should play greater role in the macro-control policy. China will strictly control the volume and granting pace of loans, so as to better regulate domestic demand and balance international payments.

 

-- Fiscal expenditure must be optimized to facilitate industrial restructuring and coordinate regional development. Fiscal input in social security, medicare, sanitation, education and household benefits will see concrete increase, while low-income families will receive more stipends as an offset of price rises for basic living necessities.

 

-- Consolidate the fundamental role of agriculture in China's economic growth so as to secure grain crops, and supply and enrich rural China.

 

-- Technical innovation should be based on market demand and be centered upon core technologies that can break the bottlenecks of China's economic and social development. Enterprises should be put at the core of technical innovation to enhance national competence and facilitate emission reduction and energy conservation.

 

-- Prices, taxations and financial policies should be used as an incentive to stimulate energy conservation while environmental-friendly and compulsory market access criteria must be put into place.

 

-- Environmental protection and emission reduction should serve as a crucial criterion for the evaluation of local authorities so as to promote the application of advanced technology and curb the development of high-polluting and high-energy-consumption industries.

 

-- Channel more financial aid to undeveloped regions, especially the interior revolutionary bases, habitats for people of ethnic groups, border regions and poverty-stricken areas.

 

-- Urbanization must be advanced in a sustainable manner and not at the costs of land waste.

 

--Deepen economic reforms, especially in fiscal and taxation systems as well as pricing and investment mechanisms so as to facilitate the transfer of economic growth mode from quantity to quality.

 

-- Advance the Free Trade Area strategy and strengthen bilateral and multi-lateral cooperation. Open up China wider to the outside world and improve the quality and added value of export products.

 

-- Double efforts in improving the livelihood of the people and facilitate social harmony, including expanding the social benefit and medicare for urban and rural residents, increasing education capital input and boosting low-rent house construction.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 6, 2007)