A Shift Toward High-Quality Development of China

As a starting point for the macroeconomic analysis of the shift to high-quality development, this chapter, comprising seven articles, is entitled “Facing the New Normal of Economic Development”.

High-quality development embodies the new development philosophy. The part, comprising five articles, is entitled “Applying the New Development Philosophy”.

To pursue high-quality development means to focus on supply-side structural reform. This chapter, comprising five articles, is entitled “Focusing on Supply-side Structural Reform”. In December 2015, the CPC Central Committee proposed to promote supply-side structural reform and defined five key tasks of cutting overcapacity, deleveraging, reducing excess inventory, lowering costs, and strengthening areas of weakness.

As China’s stage of economic development changes, its macroeconomic regulatory system must also keep pace with the times. This chapter, comprising six articles, is entitled “Building a Macroeconomic Regulatory System for the New Era”.

This chapter, comprising eight articles, is entitled “New Interpretations of Proactive Fiscal Policy”. The “new interpretations” here implies offering new explanations about proactive fiscal policy or redefining proactive fiscal policy.

This chapter, comprising six articles, is entitled “New Policies on Tax and Fee Cuts”. Its basic purpose is to explain the significant differences between this round of tax and fee cuts and previous ones in ideas, measures, theoretical support, and methodological support, thus creating an analytical framework for understanding tax and fee cuts in the shift to high-quality development.

The last chapter of the book, comprising five articles, is entitled “Promoting High-quality Economic Development”. A key factor in economic development is investment. In the context of China’s current system, we should focus on investment listed in the central government budget. The scale, structure and change of investment not only have a profound impact on the Chinese economy, but also shows the direction of macroeconomic regulation. As the Chinese economy shifts from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development, the investment listed in the central government budget, designed in the stage of high-speed growth in response to the crisis, has shown deficiencies in many aspects. According to the requirements of high-quality development, it is undoubtedly necessary to make strategic adjustments in such aspects as specifying the areas of investment, returning to regular budget management, appropriately reducing the scale of investment, and actively preventing local debt risks. The article “Central Government Budgetary Investment Towards High-quality Development” is based on the Third-party Performance Evaluation Report on the Central Government’s Investment in Capital Construction, a research project I led and entrusted by the Ministry of Finance in 2017.