Recently, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting. Since the beginning of this year, all regions and departments have worked hard to grasp the economy, consolidated and strengthened the upward trend of the economy, increased positive factors in economic operation, continued to enhance momentum, improved social expectations, and made solid progress in high-quality development, showing the characteristics of rapid growth, structural optimization, and good quality and efficiency, and the economy has achieved a good start.

What are the key messages from the meeting? How can we better understand the current economic situation? How to build a unified national market? Jingtai interprets it for you.

How do you view the economic "report card" in the first quarter?

Since the beginning of this year, China's economy has continued to pick up and improve, with steady economic growth, steady progress in structural adjustment, steady improvement in quality and efficiency, strong protection for people's livelihood, overall improvement in market expectations, and a steady start and a good start. Such an excellent "report card" can be truly reflected from the national to the local, from the macro to the micro.

From a macroeconomic point of view, the growth of major indicators has accelerated. GDP grew by 5.3% year-on-year in the first quarter, an increase of 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter and 0.8 percentage points from the same period last year. From the perspective of regional development, the regional economy is stable and improving. Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang and other major economic provinces in the east continue to "take the lead", and the economies of the three major power source areas of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area have grown rapidly. From the perspective of industry enterprises, the operating efficiency and confidence vitality have been steadily improved. In the first quarter, the total profits of industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 4.3 percent year-on-year. The manufacturing PMI in April was 50.4%, running above the boom and bust line for two consecutive months. From the perspective of residents' living standards, employment income continued to improve.

The plan of the year lies in the spring, and how the economy "takes off" at the beginning has a great impact on the trend of the whole year. On the whole, a good start and a good recovery are the basic characteristics and trends of China's current economic operation, with more positive factors, continuous enhancement of momentum, improvement of social expectations, and solid progress in high-quality development, laying a solid foundation for achieving the annual goal.

What are the measures to build a unified national market?

Accelerating the construction of a unified national market is an inevitable requirement for smoothing the domestic cycle and promoting the construction of a new development pattern, and it is also an important starting point for releasing the potential of domestic demand and promoting the sustained recovery of the economy. In accordance with the deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission and relevant parties have established and made good use of the coordination mechanism of the department to promote the construction of a unified national market, strengthened the implementation of various tasks, and played a positive role in improving the market environment and social expectations. The specific progress is manifested in the "five unifications" and "three norms".

The "five unifications" are to accelerate the unification of market systems, facilities, and supervision by further promoting the key tasks of efficient market connectivity.

First, the basic market system has become more unified and improved, the items on the negative list for market access have been reduced from 151 items in the 2018 version to the current 117 items, the rules for fair competition review in the field of bidding and bidding have been introduced, and the systems for property rights protection, market access, fair competition, and social credit have been accelerated and improved.

Second, the market facilities are more unified and smooth, the multimodal transport "one single system", public resource trading and other policies have been introduced, the modern circulation network, market information interaction channels and other facilities continue to be optimized, and the ratio of total social logistics costs to GDP has dropped to 14.4%.

Third, greater strides have been made in the unification of the factor resource market, the online transaction service platform of the national land secondary market has been put into operation, some regions have realized mutual recognition of professional titles between regions, and the opinions on building a data basic system to better play the role of data elements have been introduced, and the flow of land, labor, capital, technology, data and other elements has been smoother.

Fourth, the commodity and service market has moved towards a higher level, the national 12315 consumer complaint information publicity platform has been put into operation, and the quality standard and other systems have been continuously improved.

Fifth, market supervision has become more fair and unified, regulations on prohibiting the abuse of administrative power to eliminate and restrict competition have been introduced, and a total of 45 unreasonable fines in administrative regulations and departmental rules will be cleared up and cancelled from 2022 to 2023.

What measures will be introduced to support the development of the new energy vehicle industry?

Since the beginning of this year, China's new energy vehicles have continued to maintain a momentum of rapid development, showing the vigor and vigor of both supply and demand. On the one hand, market demand continues to expand. In the first quarter, China's new energy vehicle production and sales reached 2.115 million and 2.09 million respectively, a year-on-year increase of 28.2% and 31.8%, respectively. On the other hand, the supply of products is becoming more and more abundant. Since the beginning of this year, more than 30 new energy models have been released or put on sale, and many products have received widespread attention from public opinion and actively subscribed by consumers.

Focus on three aspects of work.

The first is to promote industrial optimization and upgrading. Adhere to scientific and technological innovation to promote industrial innovation, and guide enterprises to continue to strengthen R&D investment and technological innovation. Promote the R&D and innovation of power batteries, intelligent driving and other technologies, and improve the level of standardization and integration of vehicles and parts. Promote the development and growth of key enterprises of new energy vehicles, accelerate the withdrawal of backward enterprises and production capacity, and promote the optimization and reorganization of new energy vehicle enterprises. At the same time, China will fully lift the restrictions on foreign investment in the manufacturing sector, and welcome global auto companies to deeply integrate into the Chinese market and industrial chain system, and share the fruits of new energy vehicle development.

The second is to better meet consumer demand. In conjunction with relevant departments, we will carry out car trade-in actions and activities for new energy vehicles to go to the countryside in 2024, continue to expand the market scale, and better meet the demand for new energy vehicles with high-quality supply. We will cooperate with relevant departments to accelerate the implementation of the action plan for the trade-in of consumer goods, and adopt preferential policies such as finance and taxation in accordance with laws and regulations to support eligible trade-in behaviors and better meet consumers' demand for new energy vehicles.

The third is to speed up infrastructure construction. Strengthen the overall coordination of new energy vehicles and energy, power, infrastructure and other industries. Accelerate the construction of a high-quality charging infrastructure system, vigorously promote the construction of charging facilities in key areas such as old residential areas, along highways, and rural areas, accelerate the construction of public charging facilities based on fast charging, and improve the charging guarantee capacity of highway service areas and other holidays. Promote the improvement of technical standards, strengthen safety supervision, and improve the operation and service level of charging infrastructure. Implement and improve the peak and valley time-of-use electricity price policy, increase land use, financing and other guarantees, and provide strong support for the construction of charging infrastructure.