The fourth session of 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) of China opened on 5 and closed on 12 March 2021 in Beijing. One important part of the agenda for this year was to review and approve the 14th National Five-Year Plan (FYP) to be implemented in the period from 2021 to 2025. Initiated in 1953, the FYP is an effective national planning instrument for setting up the major development goals and targets for guiding both national and local social and economic development.
The 14th FYP sets up 6 strategic goals for promoting economic development, institutional reform and opening-up, social system construction and development, ecological development, social welfare improvement and governance enhancement.
The major targeted indicators are set as follows:
For achieving the abovementioned goals, following major strategic areas are highlighted in the 14th FYP (2021-2025):
- Further increase the development quality and efficiency, ensure sustainable economic development. To ensure the economic growth at a rational level, ensure the average labor productivity to be higher than the GDP growth, ensure social employment and stabilize consumption prices.
- Implement an innovation-driven development strategy and form new development dynamics. Attach priority to a national innovation strategy; formulate and implement scientific innovation guidelines; further improve and strengthen the national innovation system; strengthen the basic research and applied research capacity, support key national science & technology innovation programs, such as artificial intelligence, quantum information, integrated circuits, life and health related technologies, brain science, biological breeding, aerospace technology, geographic and ocean exploration technologies, etc.; formulate preferential policies to enhance the innovation capacity of enterprises; improve the infrastructures for scientific research and technology development.
- Speed up the construction of a modern industrial system and consolidate the foundation of manufacturing industry. Implement a strategy for a manufacturing power country; give priority to real economic and manufacturing industry; promote the integration of the modern manufacturing sector with the modern service sector, establish a modern industrial system consisting of manufacture, technology innovation, modern financing service, and human capital, etc.; construction of traditional and new infrastructures for modern manufacture; promote the development of digitalized and intellectual manufacture; up-grade the industrial chain and the supply chain for a modern manufacturing sector.
- Promote the development of a domestic market and build up a dual circulation of domestic and global markets. Further enlarge the domestic consumption market demands, further improve circulation links of the domestic market chain, including production, distribution, logistic circulation and consumption; form an optimal circle of “demand driving the supply and supply creating new demand”; further intensify the supply side reform, promote domestic circulation of the resources and production means; construct a modern logistic system to support the domestic goods circulation; formulate and implement a policy and institutional system to benefit the domestic market development; promote the dual circulation of domestic and global markets.
- Accelerate the development of digital economy, construct a digital China. Promote the innovation and application of digital technologies; speed up the digital technology industrialization, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, 5-G technology, etc.; promote and speed up the transformation from traditional industry to digital industry and manufacturing, including smart agriculture, speed up the construction of the digital society, such as digital education, medical services, nursing care and other areas of social services; construct digital cities and digital rural communities; develop digital governance and digital administration, etc.
- Further deepen the reform for building a high-level socialist market economy. Stimulate the vitality and incentives of all market stakeholders, including state-owned enterprises and private enterprises; construct a high-level and effective market system, including the reform of the property system and build an optimal and rational factor allocation system; encourage and regulate the market completion; construct a modern financial and taxation system; enhance governance capacity for ensuring the healthy operation of the market.
- Attach high priority to the agricultural development. Further increase the agricultural quality, efficiency and market competitiveness; further increase the productivity of major agricultural products; secure minimum arable land area at 1.8 billion mu; construct high standard farmland for high yield and productivity; strengthen the farmland infrastructures construction; accelerate the adoption of modern agricultural technologies, machines; strengthen the crop seed and animal breeding system and secure the seed and breed supply; intensify the agricultural structural optimization, transform traditional production pattern to green, organic and sustainable production pattern; develop water saving and dry-land farming systems; further reduce the application amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides; control the manure and waste emitted by large livestock and poultry farms; further strengthen the food quality supervision system, establish a food quality traceability system; support the development of agricultural industrial parks and modern agricultural demonstration parks; support the development of new rural industrial sectors; promote the integration of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries; further extend the agricultural value chains; diversify the income generation activities, such as rural ecotourism, rural leisure agriculture, etc.
- Comprehensively implement rural revitalization. Place rural construction as the priority in the national socialist modernization; conduct integrated town and village development planning (spatial planning) at the county level with focus on land use, industry development, residential living space, ecological protection, conservation and protection of traditional villages and cultural relics, etc.; further improve and strengthen rural public infrastructure and social public services, promote the equalized urban-rural social services, such as medical care, nursing care, education, etc.; further increase farmers’ scientific and technical qualification and skills, training young talents for rural revitalization; further intensify the rural land reform, extending another 30-year land contract period; encourage the circulation of rural land use rights; encourage enlarging farming scale and farm size, supporting the development of farmers’ cooperatives and new farm management entities; strengthen the trusteeship service for small farmers; strengthen the financial support to agriculture and rural development; consolidation of the results of poverty reduction and effectively combine with the rural revitalization program.
- Further implement a new urbanization strategy and ensure the quality of urbanization. Implement a people-centered urbanization strategy; promote the integrated development of big cities, city-clusters, medium cities and small towns; reform the existing Hukou (rural household register) system, accelerate the transfer of agricultural and rural residents to urban residents, help them to settle-down in towns and cities; improve and optimize the spatial layout of urbanization, promote the integrated development of city-clusters; promote modern metropolitan areas based on central and large cities for driving the development of medium and small size cities in the surrounding areas; improve the urban living conditions and public services, promoting a green city development.
- Optimize the regional economic layout and promote coordinated regional development. Optimize the development and protection pattern of land and space; implement major regional development strategies, such as Jing-Jin-Ji [Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei] Integrated Development Strategy, Yangtze River Economic Development Belt, etc.; actively and steadily promote the construction of the Guangdong – Hong Kong – Macao Greater Bay Area, Yangtze River Delta Development Zone, Yellow River Ecosystem Conservation Strategy; further promote marine economic development.
- Strengthen the cultural development and enhance the country’s cultural soft power. Enhance the social civilization level; further improve the public cultural services; promote the development of cultural industries; develop and provide advanced cultural products to urban and rural residents; support community cultural activities; conserve and protect historical culture and traditional cultural heritage; support to construct a modern cultural industry system; ensure the provision of high-quality cultural products.
- Pursue green development and promote the harmonious coexistence of human and nature. Implement the national low-carbon development strategy; establish green finance instruments for achieving low carbon development; continuously improve the environmental quality, control environmental pollutions, develop and implement an emission permit system, reduce the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, strengthen the environmental and pollution supervision; rehabilitate and increase the quality and sustainability of the ecosystem, i.e. control soil and water erosion, continue to control desertification; further increase resource use efficiency, carry out resource inventory, develop and apply water-saving technologies, establish and implement rural arable land circulation.
- Implement a high-level opening and achieve a “win-win” in international cooperation. Further intensify the opening-up to the outside world, relying on the large domestic market to further promote international cooperation; construct a more open economy, establish a freer and more convenient international trade and investment system; increase the overall competitiveness in the global trade; further implement the Belt and Road Initiative and support infrastructure interconnection and expand third party cooperation markets; build mutual benefiting industrial chains and supply chains, encourage bilateral investment, set up a diversified financial investment and fund raising mechanism; intensify the cooperation in the areas of public medical care, digital economy, green development, science and education, as well as cultural exchange; proactively participate in the construction of a global economic governance system, sustain a multilateral trade system; implement the free trade zone promotion strategy and build a high-standard free trade zone network.
- Further improve people’s welfare and well-beings. Further increase the income of people, particularly the lower income group; further enlarge the medium income group; further improve people’s living quality and welfare; further effectively implement employment promotion policy to enlarge the employment market, persist in enlarging employment supply through speeding up economic development; further increase the education quality and efficiency for supplying high qualified labors and workers; construct an equalized social welfare and social security system, implement a healthy China program, strengthen the medical care system, improve the medical service infrastructures, implement mass health campaigns; implement a national strategy to respond to challenge of the elderly population.
Key areas and targets for modern agriculture and rural development in 14th FYP:
