1. Step up structural tax cuts to boost high-quality development

 

Structural tax cuts focus on some industries, and in this year, they should be implemented "with a focus on supporting technological innovation and the development of manufacturing industry". As a way of precision regulation, it is targeted and oriented, aiming to increase new momentum for development and promote high-quality development.

 

2. Follow the law to advance new industrialization

 

Industrial development follows the principle of market economy, and its own law. New industrialization cannot be achieved overnight. It is imperative to promote a better combination of efficient markets and competent government, so as to inject impetus and broaden development space for new industrialization.

 

 

1. The Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration jointly issued the guidelines on preferential tax and fee policies for supporting the small and micro enterprises and individual entrepreneurs (2.0) on December 19, 2023. The guidelines include 50 preferential tax and fee policies that have been renewed, optimized, and improved since the beginning of 2023, to help tax and fee payers learn and understand the policies and enjoy the dividends in a timely manner.

 

2. China will implement provisional import tariff rates lower than the most-favored-nation rates on 1,010 items starting January 1, 2024 according to a statement issued by the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council on December 21, 2023.

 

3. Recently, the guideline on promoting the high-standard institutional opening-up of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone to be in line with high-standard international economic and trade rules was released by the State Council. Efforts will be made to facilitate the zone to be in compliance with high-standard economic and trade rules, and expand stress tests in more areas. 

 

 

1. The Ministry of Science and Technology released a report on Dec. 15, 2023 indicating that China ranks first worldwide in terms of the number of full-time equivalent research and development (R&D) personnel. As an important indicator measuring sci-tech manpower input, the number of full-time equivalent R&D personnel in China increased from 3.247 million in 2012 to 6.354 million in 2022, the report said.

 

2. Assets of financial institutions in China rose to RMB 452.82 trillion (about 63.82 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of the third quarter of 2023, up 9.5 percent year on year, according to the central bank.

 

3.The total demand for cold-chain logistics in China is expected to reach 350 million tons in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 6.1 percent, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

 

4. Major movie theaters all throughout the nation have started their new year's holiday screening session on November 24, 2023. Over 70 new movies were released during the holiday season, which is a 5-year high. Eighty percent are new films from within the country.

 

5. Since 2018, Chinese police have cracked 467,000 economic crime cases and recovered more than RMB 280 billion (around 39.5 billion U.S. dollars) in direct economic losses, China's Ministry of Public Security announced on Dec. 18, 2023.

 

6. As of the end of November 2023, the number of mobile phone users of the country's three telecom giants -- China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom -- had reached 1.726 billion. Among them, 771 million were 5G mobile phone users, the data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows.

 

7. The country's transport sector saw a fixed-asset investment of RMB 3.6 trillion (about 507 billion U.S. dollars) in the first 11 months of 2023, significantly contributing to stimulation of demand, stabilizing of employment and bolstering of livelihoods.

 

8. China's online retail sales jumped 11 percent year on year to RMB 13.96 trillion in the first 11 months of 2023. In particular, online retail sales of physical goods rose 8.3 percent year on year to RMB 11.77 trillion, accounting for 27.5 percent of the total retail sales of consumer goods.

 

9. The Ministry of Commerce has selected a new batch of 388 brands and plans to recognize them as time-honored brands, or "laozihao" in Chinese, a coveted title given to brands with a long history. The new batch of brands will join the existing 1,073 time-honored brands as some were delisted in recent reviews, and all together, the average age of the time-honored brands will reach 140.

 

10. An investment promotion event for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) held on Nov. 8, 2023 in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, witnessed the signing of 859 investment and trade deals totaling about RMB 2.24 trillion (around 312 billion U.S. dollars).

 

(Source: Economic Daily)