China’s government held its annual Central Economic Work Conference between December 16 and 18, 2020, proposing eight priority tasks for the new year.
The conference said that 2021 is a key year for the country after the Covid-19 pandemic, and it is the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025).
The government continues to value stable and sustainable economic development, proposing to concentrate more efforts on developing strategic technologies, improving the independence of industrial chains and expanding domestic consumption.
The conference also said it will strengthen anti-trust efforts and prevent disorderly expansion of capital, and finalize regulations to that end.
It will improve management of big data and the identification of monopolistic practices by big tech platforms.
The conference said that innovative financial activities should be based on the premise of prudent regulation. It helps explain why authorities halted the listing of Ant Group, a financial platform under Alibaba which engages in micro-loans, and ordered big platforms like those of Alibaba and Tencent to remove all deposit products offered by commercial banks.
Reform and opening-up is always the focus of the government’s economic work. In 2021, the central government will continue to shorten the negative lists for foreign and private investors, optimize the business environment and strengthen intellectual property protection.
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