China on track to achieving goals to deliver prosperous society by 2020, experts say

More solid efforts are needed for China to win the "three tough battles" against major risks, poverty and pollution, although phased achievements have been made, said Chinese officials during the ongoing two sessions.

Launched in 2017, the three critical battles, part of the nation's bid to deliver a moderately prosperous society by 2020, have progressed well and will basically meet their targets by that deadline, even though it's not far off, experts said.

The battles became a priority of domestic policy as required in the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China for the next three years since 2017 when the Congress was held.

Major risks were forestalled and defused last year, said Premier Li Keqiang when delivering the Government Work Report to lawmakers on Tuesday.

Chen Yulu, a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, the central bank, told the first press conference held on Tuesday that fending off major risks would be first among the three battles.

Preventing systemic risk is a fundamental task for the nation's financial sector, Chen said.

Structural deleveraging, an important approach for addressing such risks, is not completely contradictory to achieving steady economic growth, said Chen. "The ultimate goal for such an approach is to stabilize the financial sector. Then, the economy can grow steadily."

Maintaining the stability of China's leverage level requires the joint effort of the financial services industry and the real economy, Chen said.

Lian Ping, chief economist of Bank of Communications, said that China's corporate debt, especially that of state-owned enterprises, will remain the focus of the national deleveraging campaign, and this process needs to be properly managed.

The issue of hidden debt owed by some lower-level local governments is also a key area of concern, Lian told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"China's debt level is not so high, if we combine central government debt and local government debt under one metric," Lian said, noting that it would be incorrect to calculate debt using international standards due to the different norms.

Zhang Deyong, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank, told the Global Times on Tuesday that "it is necessary to eliminate risks in the process of economic growth. Otherwise, bigger risks will loom if the economy sags."

Last year, targeted poverty alleviation made significant progress, said Li. The poor population in rural areas was reduced by 13.86 million, including 2.8 million people who were relocated from inhospitable areas.

Wang Peian, vice director of the population, resources and environmental committee under the CPPCC National Committee, told the press conference that poverty alleviation via healthcare has played a significant role.

There are still 16.6 million poor people living in rural areas, of whom more than 40 percent remain impoverished because of disease, said Wang. He called for the improvement of supplemental insurance for those people.

Curbing pollution is another of the "three tough battles." Pollution prevention and control were strengthened in 2018, as PM2.5 levels continued to fall, said Li.

A total of 255.5 billion yuan ($38.1 billion) was invested in 2018 to fight pollution, an increase of 13.9 percent year-on-year, figures from the Ministry of Finance showed in January.

"There must be uniformity in environmental protection in enterprises. Their development vitality is equally important," Zhang noted.

(GLOBAL TIMES)