Chinanews.com, October 10 -- The Information Office of the State Council held a regular briefing on the policies of the State Council on the morning of 25 October to introduce the work of increasing the issuance of treasury bonds, supporting post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, and improving disaster prevention, mitigation and relief capabilities. Vice Minister of Finance Zhu Zhongming said at the meeting that it was decided to increase the issuance of 25 trillion yuan of 2023 treasury bonds in the fourth quarter of this year as special treasury bond management.
Zhu Zhongming said that since the beginning of this year, many places in China have suffered disasters such as heavy rain, floods, and typhoons, and some areas have been seriously affected and suffered large losses, and the task of local post-disaster recovery and reconstruction is relatively heavy. At the same time, in recent years, there have been frequent occurrences of various extreme natural disasters in China, which has put forward higher requirements for China's national defense disaster mitigation and relief capabilities. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attached great importance to this, and the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on August 8 studied and deployed flood prevention and relief and post-disaster recovery and reconstruction work, requiring accelerated recovery and reconstruction, further improving China's national defense disaster reduction and relief capabilities, building and strengthening the emergency command system at all levels, strengthening the capacity building of national regional emergency rescue centers, improving grassroots disaster prevention and risk avoidance capabilities, accelerating the improvement of flood control engineering systems in river basins, especially in major river basins in the northern region, and strengthening the planning and construction of urban flood prevention and drainage capabilities.
To this end, the State Council put forward a motion to propose the issuance of additional 2023 treasury bonds to support post-disaster recovery and reconstruction and improve disaster prevention, mitigation and relief capabilities, which was deliberated and passed at the sixth meeting of the Standing Committee of the <>th National People's Congress, which just concluded yesterday. The specific content mainly includes the following aspects:
Regarding the scale of funds, taking into account the needs of post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, disaster prevention, mitigation and relief, and overall financial capacity, it was decided to increase the issuance of 2023 treasury bonds by 1 trillion yuan in the fourth quarter of this year as special treasury bonds for management. According to this calculation, in 2023, the national fiscal deficit will increase from 3.88 trillion yuan to 4.88 trillion yuan, the central fiscal deficit will increase from 3.16 trillion yuan to 4.16 trillion yuan, and the fiscal deficit rate is expected to increase from 3% to about 3.8%.
Regarding the direction of capital investment, focusing on the key tasks determined by the Politburo Standing Committee meeting, focusing on post-disaster recovery and reconstruction and improving disaster prevention, mitigation and relief capabilities, mainly in eight directions:
First, it will be used for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, supporting post-disaster recovery and reconstruction in northern China, with a focus on Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, and improving disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities, so as to promote the restoration of basic production and living conditions and economic development in disaster-stricken areas to pre-disaster levels.
Second, it is a backbone flood control project focusing on northern areas such as the Haihe River and Songhua River basins. Support flood prevention and control of the main streams of major rivers and lakes, treatment of flood prevention impacts of the South-to-North Water Diversion, construction of large and medium-sized reservoirs, and construction of embankments in flood storage and detention areas, and accelerate the improvement of the flood control engineering system.
Third, it is the project to improve the emergency response capacity of natural disasters. Support the implementation of early warning command projects, rescue capacity projects, catastrophe prevention projects and grassroots disaster prevention projects, strengthen the system of emergency command departments at all levels, and improve disaster prevention and avoidance capabilities.
Fourth, other key flood control projects. Support the treatment of major tributaries, small and medium-sized rivers, mountain flood ditches and drainage capacity in key areas, hydrological infrastructure, small reservoir projects, risk removal reinforcement and safety monitoring of dangerous reservoirs, seawall control, and overall improvement of flood and drought disaster defense capabilities.
Fifth, it is the construction and transformation of irrigation areas and key soil erosion control projects. Support the construction, renovation and restoration of irrigation areas, the treatment of erosion ditches in the northeast black soil area, and the control of soil erosion in the Danjiangkou Reservoir, and improve the ability of irrigation water supply and drainage guarantee and disaster prevention and mitigation.
Sixth, it is the action to improve the capacity of urban drainage and waterlogging. Support the construction of urban drainage and waterlogging prevention engineering systems, and promote systematic solutions to urban waterlogging problems.
Seventh, it is the construction project of a comprehensive prevention and control system for key natural disasters. Support the construction of a comprehensive prevention and control system for geological disasters, a comprehensive prevention and control system for marine disasters, the construction of forest fire emergency roads, and the construction of meteorological infrastructure, and promote the transformation of disaster prevention and control from reducing disaster losses to reducing disaster risks.
Eighth, it is used for the construction of high-standard farmland in the northeast region and the disaster-stricken areas of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. Priority will be given to supporting high-standard farmland construction in the northeast region and the disaster-stricken areas of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. This is the second aspect of the introduction.
Zhu Zhongming pointed out: Regarding budgetary arrangements. In order to alleviate the pressure on local financial expenditure in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction and improving disaster prevention, mitigation and relief capabilities, all the additional 1 trillion yuan of treasury bonds issued this time will be arranged to local governments through transfer payments, arranged for use according to relevant work progress and project reserves, etc., and concentrated on supporting post-disaster recovery and reconstruction and improving disaster prevention, mitigation and relief capabilities with strong financial guarantees.
Zhu Zhongming emphasized that in the next step, the Ministry of Finance will, in accordance with the requirements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, work with relevant departments to grasp the specific implementation of the additional issuance of treasury bonds, promptly start the issuance of treasury bonds, do a good job in issuing budgets, continue to follow up and strengthen the supervision of treasury bond funds, and effectively improve the efficiency of the use of treasury bond funds.