- Keeping economic growth within a proper range. GDP is projected to grow by around 7.5%. This target has been set on the basis of overall consideration of the need to implement reform, promote adjustment, improve people's wellbeing, and guard against risks. On the one hand, development still holds the key to solving all our country's problems. To move economic structural adjustment forward, stabilize and increase employment and ensure and improve people's wellbeing, we must keep the economy growing within a reasonable range. We must rely on development even more to further reduce poverty and finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. On the other hand, there are quite a few favorable conditions for us to maintain steady growth this year. Our efforts to comprehensively deepen reform will give fresh impetus and vitality to economic development, policies and measures introduced earlier to keep growth stable will continue to have an effect, and consumption, investment and external demand will all provide support for our economic growth. At the same time, it is inappropriate to set a growth rate that is too high. China is now in a crucial stage of hastening the shift in the growth model and the job of industrial transformation and upgrading is heavy. The growth rate of around 7.5% is an economic growth target that is flexible and guiding. Local governments should properly set their own growth rates in line with their actual conditions, and must not seek faster growth or compete with each other to have the highest growth rate.

- Focusing on raising the quality and returns of economic development and promoting industrial upgrading. We will accelerate development of modern service industries, and the share of value-added by the service sector in GDP will continue to rise. Our R&D spending will account for a higher proportion of GDP, the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries will be accelerated, and strategic emerging industries will enjoy healthy development. A new type of urbanization will proceed in an orderly way, and development in different regions will become better balanced. Positive ecological progress will be made. Energy consumption per unit of GDP will drop more than 3.9%; carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP will fall 4%; the emissions of sulfur dioxide, chemical oxygen demand, and ammoniacal nitrogen will all drop 2%, and nitrogen oxides emissions, 5%. Water consumption per 10,000 yuan of value-added of industry will decrease 5.2%. Accelerating economic transformation and upgrading is an onerous and pressing task facing us, and we must not sacrifice structural adjustment as well as natural resources and the environment for the sake of rapid growth. This combination of targets that has been put forward will guide all sectors to channel their energy into improving the industrial structure, pressing ahead with a new type of urbanization, better balancing development in different regions, and promoting ecological advancement; to remove major structural barriers; and to improve the quality and returns of economic development.

- Keeping prices basically stable. The rise in the CPI will be kept at about 3.5%. In setting this target, we have considered factors causing inflation and people's ability to tolerate it, and have also left space for reform and structural adjustment. On the one hand, the present basic equilibrium between aggregate supply and aggregate demand, the year-to-year increases in grain output, and the ample supply of almost all products provide a good foundation and many beneficial conditions for keeping overall prices basically stable. On the other hand, there is some upward pressure on inflation this year, and there are both the carry-over effect of last year's inflation and new factors causing inflation. At the same time, there is the need to move forward with the reform of prices of resource products. We will therefore need to work hard to attain this target.

- Giving high priority to improving people's wellbeing. More than ten million urban jobs will be added this year; the registered urban unemployment rate will be kept under 4.6%, and the survey-based unemployment rate in large cities will be kept at an appropriate level. Both urban and rural incomes will increase basically in step with economic growth. The social security system will be improved. Basic public services will be made more equally available. The natural population growth rate will be kept under 6.5 per thousand. Work on 4.8 million government-subsidized housing units will be basically completed in urban areas, and construction will begin on an additional seven million-plus units. This year's target for urban job creation is one million more than last year mainly to better meet the needs of the urban workforce entering the job market for the first time and to respond to the fact that employment pressure will be considerable because more students will graduate from college this year. At the same time, we have the conditions to meet this target because as the GDP base increases and service sector growth speeds up, more jobs will be created with every percentage point growth in GDP. (more)