(Economic Observation) After 90 policies are added, China will increase its efforts to stabilize enterprises and ensure employment
China News Service, Beijing, May 7 (Reporter Wang Enbo) The part of the "May Day" small holiday just released has unleashed the long-term savings potential of the Chinese people, but after this, China's economic recovery still has many difficulties to overcome .
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang chaired an executive meeting of the State Council on May 6, listened to the report on the implementation of policies and measures to support the resumption of production and assist enterprises, and launched and further improved relevant policies to increase the stability of enterprises to secure employment.
The reason why stabilizing an enterprise is that it moves the whole body in one stroke. Affected by the epidemic, many enterprises have stagnation in production and operation, reduced demand for employment, and delayed or canceled some recruitments, resulting in significantly increased employment pressure in China.
Official data show that in the first quarter, 2.29 million jobs were added to cities and towns in China, a year-on-year decrease of 950,000. In February, the unemployment rate in China ’s urban survey rose to 6.2%, an increase of 0.9 percentage points from the same period last year. Affected by various factors, the number of people entering the labor market has decreased, and the number of employed persons in March decreased by more than 6% compared with January.
In response to a series of challenges, the State Council executive meeting revealed that various departments around the country have introduced 90 policy measures in 8 areas in a timely and accurate manner, focusing on promoting the resumption of production and assisting enterprises in bailing out. These include: reduction and exemption of the three social insurance premiums paid by various enterprises, including pension, unemployment, and work injury, which reached 600 billion yuan in the first half of the year (RMB, the same below), the implementation of the unemployment insurance stabilization rebate policy benefited more than 84 million employees; 100 million yuan of funds, etc.
Wen Bin, chief researcher of China Minsheng Bank, told reporters that the above-mentioned policies include various aspects such as finance, taxation, and finance, and are highly targeted and implemented. At present, the effects of relevant policies have begun to show, which has played a positive role in achieving major strategic results in China's epidemic prevention and control and promoting the gradual return to normal production and production.
According to the monitoring of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of April 14, the average operating rate of industrial enterprises above designated size in China has reached 99%, and the resumption rate of SMEs has exceeded 80%. According to information from the National Development and Reform Commission, railways, airports, energy and foreign-invested projects have basically resumed work, and the construction of new infrastructure such as 5G and data centers has accelerated. The rate of resumption of key projects at the end of March reached more than 90%.
But this does not mean that China's economy is back on track.
At present, due to the poor economic cycle, some enterprises still have difficulties in resuming production, lack of orders for production, resumption of work without reinstatement, and no increase in revenue. In addition, the unemployment rate in China ’s urban survey in March was 0.7 percentage points higher than the same period of the previous year, and nearly 20% of the employed people were not in work, reflecting that the employment pressure has not disappeared.
To this end, the executive meeting of the State Council further increased relief measures, requiring timely introduction and improvement of relevant policies based on changes in the situation and corporate demands.
First, in response to the current epidemic, the small and micro enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households are allowed to postpone the payment of income tax, and extend the implementation period of the relevant tax and fee policies that support the prevention and control of the epidemic. Provide taxpayers with public transportation services, living services, and provide residents with necessary living materials express delivery service income, extend the time for exemption from VAT.
Second, on the basis of the 1.29 trillion yuan of local government special bonds already issued at the beginning of the year, an additional limit of 1 trillion yuan of special bonds was issued in advance to strive for completion at the end of May.
The third is to extend the policy of postponing principal and interest repayment for enterprises that maintain basically stable jobs, especially small, medium and micro enterprises, and create policy tools to support banks in issuing more credit loans.
The analysis pointed out that the above measures will play at least two roles. On the one hand, in the context of the easing of the epidemic situation and the recovery of the consumer market, the State Council has further introduced policies to delay the payment of income tax, extend the repayment of principal and interest, and issue more credit loans. It was a timely rain, especially for small business owners to "breath" and better survive the difficulties to achieve "restart after the epidemic".
On the other hand, increasing the scale of local special bond issuance and accelerating the pace of issuance will help alleviate the local government's financial pressure, ensure the start of key projects and drive upstream and downstream enterprises to resume production, which is critical to stabilizing domestic demand.
Wen Bin pointed out that in particular, the current global epidemic situation is still spreading and spreading, the external environment is complicated, and the external demand situation is facing great uncertainty. Therefore, the current focus of China's economic work must still focus on steadily expanding domestic demand. While further introducing relevant policies to encourage consumption, it also ensures that investment continues to play a key role in steady growth. (Finish)