President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji made important speeches at the conference. Present were also Li Peng, Li Ruihuan, Hu Jintao, Wei Jianxing and Li Lanqing.

In his speech, Jiang analyzed the current economic situation and put forward guiding principles and major tasks for next year's economic work.

The tasks for economic work in 2001 are:

-- To strengthen the primary status of agriculture in the national economy and make efforts to increase farmers' incomes;

-- To make greater efforts to readjust and optimize industrial structures;
-- To further reform state-owned enterprises;

-- To further improve the social security system and expand employment opportunities;

-- To continue the proactive fiscal policy;

-- To continue the stable monetary policy and tighten supervision over banking institutions;

-- To promote the strategy of developing the western areas of China in a bid to seek balanced regional development;

-- To further China's opening-up to the outside world;

-- To boost scientific and technological progress and strengthen personnel training; and

-- To take substantial measures to improve management, and regulate and standardize market order.

The conference set the goal of striving for a "sustained, rapid and sound" development of the national economy and overall social progress in 2001 to create a positive start for the accomplishment of the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-2005).

According to the conference, a pro-active fiscal policy and sound monetary policies will be implemented to stimulate domestic demand, and macro-economic measures will be carried out to consolidate the current development situation.

China will further promote the restructuring of the national economy and the application of information technology in the industrial sector, the conference stressed.

More support will be given to the agricultural sector to consolidate its status as a basic industry and farmers' income will be increased.

China will step up enterprise reforms to transform management mechanisms and enhance the competitiveness of State-owned enterprises.

Moreover, China will make thorough preparation for its entry into the World Trade Organization by opening up further to the outside world.

Social security systems will be established to create job opportunities and improve people's lives.

In all, China will properly handle the relations between reform and stability to achieve overall development in 2001.

The conference also outlined six targets for the economic work in 2001.

In reviewing this year's economic work, the conference said that China's national economy has maintained rapid growth in 2000 as a result of effective measures adopted by the central authorities.

As a result of these measures, investment, consumption and exports nationwide picked up. Thus, the goal of improving the profitability of State-owned large- and medium-sized enterprises was basically reached, with a surge in enterprise profits and state revenue.

The changes indicate that China has overcome the difficulties arising from the Asian financial crisis and reversed the lukewarm economic growth over the past two years, the conference said, adding that the national economic development has had a turn for the better.

(Xinhua 11/30/2000)