General secretary Xi Jinping attended the panel discussion on the Government Work Report by the delegates from the Hunan delegation, March 8, 2016.

Deep feelings about “targeted poverty alleviation”

In the morning of March 8, 2016, General secretary Xi Jinping attended the panel discussion on the Government Work Report by the delegates from the Hunan delegation. During the discussion, he inquired about the progress of “targeted poverty alleviation”in the past in Shibadong Village.

Why does the General Secretary care so much about the Shibadong Village? In November 2013, President Xi went to the Shibadong Village of Huayuan County in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Hunan Province to investigate the poverty alleviation program, and put forward the basic strategy of “targeted poverty alleviation”.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, more than half of general secretary Xi’s 28 domestic investigation “roadmap” have been related to poverty alleviation. Poverty alleviation not only benefits a village or the local people, but also directly affects the well-being of tens of millions of people and the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020.

The profound meaning of “Food crop production strategy based on farmland management and technological application”

Hunan, as an agricultural province, has the highest total grain yield in China. Xi Jinping pointed out that “China is a country with a large population, and solving food problem is always the top priority of governance”.“The rice bowl should be filled with our own rice.” This simple phrase has been repeatedly mentioned by Xi.

When attending the panel discussion with the Hunan delegation, general secretary Xi emphasized that we should promote the supply-side structural reform in agriculture and improve the comprehensive efficiency and competitiveness of agriculture to implement the “Food crop production strategy based on farmland management and technological application”.

Implications of the “addition and subtraction” of supply-side reform

During the discussion on March 8, some delegates put forward the suggestions on accelerating the construction of Hunan as a province with strong manufacturing force together with the supply-side structural reform.

"Promoting supply-side structural reform is a tough task.” During the discussion, Xi pointed out that we should apply “addition” and “subtraction” methods carefully, increase factor input, promote economic growth, reduce inefficient and low-end supply, and expand effective and medium- to high-end supply, and improve total factor productivity.

Du Jiahao, the delegate of the National People’s Congress and the governor of Hunan Province, believes that the central government’s efforts to promote supply-side structural reform is a major innovation in the development mode, an important point for steady growth, promoting reform, adjusting structure, benefiting people’s livelihood and preventing risks at present and in the future, and it is also a vivid embodiment of socialist economics with Chinese characteristics.