This year the National People's Congress and the CPPCC deployed a series of unprecedented proactive fiscal policies to hedge against the impact of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic. In recent days, the National Finance Department (Bureau) Ministerial Forum will make comprehensive arrangements for the implementation of positive fiscal policy measures and clarify the relevant requirements. How can the use of financial funds be inserted into the end? How do governments at all levels live a tight life? The reporter interviewed relevant department heads, experts and scholars.
This year the National People's Congress and the CPPCC deployed a series of unprecedented proactive fiscal policies to hedge against the impact of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic. How can various policies and funds see real results as soon as possible, and play a key role in stabilizing economic growth? On June 8th, the National Finance Department (Bureau) Director-General's Symposium made a comprehensive deployment of the implementation of positive fiscal policy measures, clarified the relevant requirements, and strived to achieve the maximum policy effect.
Funds directly reach grassroots people's livelihood
The central government clearly demanded that "a proactive fiscal policy should be more active and promising". The "Government Work Report" puts forward a series of proactive fiscal policy measures such as increasing the deficit rate, issuing special anti-epidemic bonds, and increasing special bonds.
Summarizing the central and local budgets, it is expected that the national general public budget revenue will be 18.03 trillion yuan this year, and raise funds through various channels to strive to maintain the intensity of fiscal expenditures, with expenditures reaching 24.79 trillion yuan. "In terms of the scale of expenditure, the strength of the proactive fiscal policy is unprecedented, and the uncertainties that may exist in the second half of the year are taken into account." Liu Kun, Minister of Finance, said.
The reporter was informed that on the afternoon of May 28th, the relevant departments of the Ministry of Finance completed the budget approval of the central department, and the central government's budget for local transfer payments is being released as soon as possible. "Financial departments in various places should also promote the decomposition of funds into specific projects as soon as possible, and give full play to the benefits of funds and policies as soon as possible." Liu Kun said.
The "Government Work Report" clearly requires that funds go directly to the city and county grassroots levels, directly benefiting enterprises and the people. The use of funds "insert in the end" is an innovation of macro-control. "This direct transfer payment method is an institutional innovation that serves as a necessary precaution against the interception and misappropriation of financial funds, and will better promote the realization of special transfer payments mainly for the purpose of ensuring employment, basic people's livelihood, and market subject. "Yang Zhiyong, deputy dean of the Academy of Economic and Strategic Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.
Liu Yi, a professor at the School of Economics at Peking University, believes that promoting the sinking of financial resources is an inevitable requirement for China’s social and economic development in the current internal and external environment, and is also an important measure to achieve a more proactive fiscal policy. "Sinking financial resources in a timely manner is to guide grassroots growth Financial resources and key means to promote the conversion of old and new kinetic energy."
"Too tight days" are implemented item by item
The "Government Work Report" emphasizes that governments at all levels must really live a tight life. The Ministry of Finance requires that we adhere to within-meet-for-money, under-guaranteed, and overwhelmed pressures to break the cardinal concept and the pattern of expenditure solidification.
Vigorously reduce general expenditures, and substantially reduce non-rigid, non-key project expenditures and public expenditures of central departments. At the same time, strengthen the linkage mechanism between budget arrangement and execution, review, audit and performance. It is reported that after a series of measures to reduce, non-rigidly need to reduce non-rigid expenditures by more than 50%, unprecedented pressure. At the same time, local governments at all levels should vigorously reduce expenditures.
Bai Yanfeng, the dean of the School of Finance and Taxation at the Central University of Finance and Economics, believes that it is very important to reduce unnecessary fiscal expenditures to "save money for the people" under the increasingly acute contradiction between fiscal revenues and expenditures.
It is reported that the Ministry of Finance has issued notices that set clear requirements for local financial departments in terms of compressing general expenditures, strictly implementing expenditure standards, strengthening the "three public" fund management, hardening budget execution constraints, and implementing restrictions on special regions and departments. .
According to the deployment, all localities should strictly control expenditure budgets, vigorously reduce general expenditures, comprehensively sort out the 2020 budget according to the zero-based budget concept, and further reduce public expenditures such as meetings, travel, training, and overseas trips, and can be temporarily suspended due to the impact of the epidemic. And expenditure items that are no longer under development.
In the case of very serious income and expenditure contradictions, this year the central government urgently needs to increase financial input for poverty alleviation, arranging subsidies for local special poverty alleviation funds of 146.1 billion yuan, an annual increase of 20 billion yuan for five consecutive years, and a further increase of 300 through the transfer of funds 100 million yuan, further tilting to the deeply impoverished areas such as the "three districts and three states", the areas under the supervision of the war and the areas heavily affected by the epidemic.
The Ministry of Finance requires that local financial departments at all levels, when studying and implementing policies to support epidemic prevention and control, resume work and resume production, and stabilize jobs, should give priority to poverty alleviation factors, increase support for inclination, and take effective measures to overcome the epidemic situation. influences. At the same time, we must vigorously support other key areas such as pollution prevention, education, and key core technology research to provide a strong guarantee for the comprehensive construction of a well-off society.
With regard to the issues of effectively securing basic livelihoods, wages, and operations at the grassroots level, the central government has increased financial support for local governments through measures such as increasing fiscal deficits, issuing special anti-epidemic bonds, and vigorously curbing central government spending. This year, the central government's transfer payments to local governments reached 83,915 billion yuan, an increase of 950 billion yuan or 12.8% over the previous year.
Accelerated issuance of government bonds
This year, government bond funds reached 8.51 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.6 trillion yuan over the previous year, an unprecedented increase in scale. Currently, it is necessary to speed up the issuance and use of the bond funds as early as possible.
It is reported that the Ministry of Finance has issued a total of 2.848 trillion yuan of new bond quotas in 2020 in advance in four batches, including general debt quota of 558 billion yuan and special debt quota of 2.29 trillion yuan. At present, the remaining new general bonds, special bond lines and anti-epidemic special treasury bond funds are being released in accordance with the procedures.
The latest statistics show that in May, local government bonds issued 1302.5 billion yuan, creating a new monthly high of local bond issuance. As of the end of May, local bonds issued a total of 319.7 billion yuan in 2020, of which 270.224 billion yuan were new bonds and 497.3 billion yuan were refinanced bonds. In the first five months, the amount of new bond issuances completed 57.1% of the local new debt limit of RMB 473 trillion, an increase of 9.8 percentage points year-on-year.
Special bonds are of great significance for expanding effective investment and stimulating economic growth. The Ministry of Finance requires that the principle of "funds follow projects" should be adhered to, and special bond funds should be used in key areas and major strategic projects determined by the central government to promote private investment, effectively support shortcomings, benefit people's livelihood, promote consumption, and expand domestic demand. . All localities must pay close attention to project reserves and early preparations. Making good use of special bonds can be used as a policy for qualified major project capital, play a guiding role, and increase social capital investment.
"You can't pay less attention to debt risk just because you respond to the epidemic. You can't create new risks by borrowing illegally because of financial difficulties. You will never leave sequelae to solve short-term problems." Liu Kun said that all places should use hidden debt as a strengthening of local government debt. The top priority of management is to firmly hold the bottom line that no systemic risk occurs.
"It is necessary to closely monitor the dynamic risk of the overall scale of local government debt, but also to monitor and supervise the risk status of local and individual bond financing projects to prevent the "black swan" phenomenon." Zhao Quanhou, director of the Financial Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, believes that Continuously improve the normal monitoring mechanism of local government debt, strengthen unified supervision, and improve the efficiency of supervision. (Zeng Jinhua, reporter from Economic Daily)