On December 26, the 2020 National Teleconference on Commercial Work was held in Beijing. Following the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and the guidelines of the 19th CPC National Congress and the second, third and fourth plenary sessions of the 19th CPC Central Committee, the teleconference aimed to firmly implement the instructions of the Central Economic Work Conference, sum up commercial work in 2020, analyze the overall situation, and lay out key tasks for 2021. Vice Premier Hu Chunhua attended and spoke at the teleconference, and Wang Wentao, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Minister of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), delivered a work report to the meeting.

The meeting highlighted that faced with complex global challenges, especially the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic this year, commercial departments nationwide, under the strong leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, have earnestly carried out the decisions and instructions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. They have ensured economic and social development while preventing and controlling the disease, and taken proactive steps despite difficulties. As a result, the fundamentals of foreign trade and investment have been stabilized, consumption has been recovering, and the development of commerce has gained steady momentum, with performance better than anticipated. Consumption recovered steadily, underpinned by flourishing new business modes and models; foreign trade hit a new record, with an optimized structure; paid-in investment bucked the trend and registered growth, particularly shown by progress in major projects; outbound investment grew healthily; new breakthroughs were secured in bilateral and multilateral economic and trade cooperation.

The meeting pointed out that over the past year, we have gotten on with our tasks in solid steps, including the eight major action plans, the “6+1” key tasks, and the pursuit of high-quality commercial development. First, following through with the directives of the CPC Central Committee on disease containment, we ensured the supply of daily necessities, pushed for resumption of work, production, and business activities, initiated international anti-pandemic cooperation, and strengthened disease prevention for enterprises’ overseas projects. Second, we facilitated consumption recovery and unleashed consumption potential by boosting urban consumption, expanding rural consumption, accelerating the consumption of services, and focusing on the consumption of consumer goods. Third, to stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade and investment, we did out best to introduce policy support, encourage innovation-driven trade development, improve foreign investment utility, and speed up the development of free trade zones and free trade port. Fourth, in deepening economic and trade cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), we advanced the development of major projects and parks steadfastly, bettered risk management, and vividly presented the BRI. Fifth, we continued to deepen bilateral and multilateral economic and trade cooperation, played an active role in global economic governance, further developed pilot free trade zones, forcefully and effectively responded to China-US economic and trade frictions, and carried our economic and trade ties with other countries and regions forward. Sixth, we extensively launched poverty alleviation projects through commerce; e-commerce, household service, overseas labor service, industrial, and border trade projects yielded remarkable results, contributing to winning the fight against poverty.

The meeting noted that over the past year, we consolidated outcomes of the initiative to raise awareness of the need to stay true to the Party’s founding mission, and made accepting central discipline inspection and rectifying the problems identified a regular task. We enabled the role of primary Party organizations as “battle fortresses” and gave full play to the role of Party members as vanguards and role models. These measures helped us build a team of high-quality commercial officials. Party members and other officials in all commercial departments nationwide, with the Party’s founding mission in mind, made their best effort in the fight against COVID-19 and committed themselves to China’s commercial reform and development; they have left us with exemplar and moving stories.

The meeting defined the year 2020 as a successful conclusion of commercial development during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. In the past five years, China made new historic achievements in commercial development, with its rising status as a major consumer, reinforced position as a major trader, growing prominence as a major country of paid-in foreign investment, secured position as a major investor, and improved capacity for global economic governance.

The meeting highlighted the unique significance of the year 2021 to China’s modernization. Commercial departments must:
- follow the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era;
- strengthen our consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment with the central Party leadership; stay confident in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics; and uphold General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole, and uphold the Party Central Committee’s authority and its centralized, unified leadership;
- fully implement the guiding principles of the Party’s 19th National Congress and the second, third, fourth, and fifth plenary sessions of its 19th Central Committee, as well as the instructions of the Central Economic Work Conference;
- follow the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, understand the new development stage we are at, apply the new development philosophy, and foster the new development paradigm;
- aim at high-quality commercial development, pursue supply-side structural reform as our main task, draw momentum from reform and opening-up, and align our fundamental objective with people’s growing demand for a better life;
- work from a systemic perspective, consolidate and expand the progress of the fight against covid-19 while ensuring economic and social development, and better balance development and safety;
- concentrate on ensuring stability on the six fronts and security in the six areas, boost overall consumption, improve the modern distribution system, firmly stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade and investment, expand high-standard opening-up, and deepen bilateral and multilateral economic and trade cooperation.
These steps will earn us a head start in the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and help us land a solid first step with new vitality towards the new development paradigm.

The meeting identified the following objectives for fostering the new development paradigm next year. In facilitating the domestic circulation, we will focus on supply-side structural reform as the main task while improving demand-side management; based on the strategy to expand domestic demand, we will tap into consumption potential, establish a modern commercial distribution system, unclog domestic distribution, and contribute to a strong domestic market; as we upgrade traditional consumption, we will also accelerate the development of new types of consumption and prepare consumption upgrading platforms; we will optimize distribution networks and grow distribution entities. In connecting domestic and international circulations, we will resolutely pursue deeper and wider opening-up in more areas; we will fully utilize both domestic and international markets and resources to achieve coordinated development of both domestic and international demands, import and export, and foreign and overseas direct investment; to stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade and investment, we will deepen economic and trade cooperation under the BRI, integrate domestic and foreign trade, build high-standard opening-up platforms, and strengthen bilateral and multilateral economic and trade cooperation.

It was required at the meeting that commercial departments implement the instructions in Vice Premier Hu Chunhua’s speech, including:
- enhancing the Party’s all-round leadership in commercial work by strengthening political awareness, taking a higher political stance, and firmly enforcing requirements and instructions of the CPC Central Committee for full, rigorous self-discipline of the Party, so that political progress leads high-quality commercial development;
- exercising prudence when adopting regular disease containment protocols, with intensive efforts to shield against imported cases and domestic resurgence, while increasing the supply of daily necessities, stepping up disease prevention for overseas project staff, carrying on pandemic response assistance, improving the administration of medical supplies exports, and ensuring prevention and control at major exhibitions and events;
- compiling a high-quality 14th five-year plan for commercial development.
These concrete steps and endeavors will speed up high-quality commercial development, contribute to the new development paradigm, and deliver outstanding performance for the centenary anniversary of the Party.

Attending the meeting were officials in charge of relevant central and state departments, officials responsible for commercial work in eight provinces and municipalities, as well as delegates from commerce, development and reform, industry and information technology, finance, and agricultural and rural affairs departments of all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, cities under separate national planning, and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

(All information published on this website is authentic in Chinese. English is provided for reference only.)

(All information published on this website is authentic in Chinese. English is provided for reference only.)