Delivered at the First Session of the Thirteenth Beijing
Municipal People's Congress on January 20, 2008

Guo Jinlong
Acting Mayor of Beijing

Fellow Deputies,
On behalf of the Beijing Municipal People's Government, I now present a report on its work to this session for your deliberation and approval and also for comments and suggestions from the members of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

I. Review of the Work of the Past Five Years

Since the First Session of the Twelfth Beijing Municipal People's Congress, the people in the city have been steadfastly taking Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents as their guide, extensively applying the Scientific Outlook on Development, closely tying all efforts to the strategic concept of "New Beijing, Great Olympics," seizing opportunities, staying realistic and pragmatic, and forging ahead with determination under the leadership of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), resulting in fresh major accomplishments in the capital's reform, opening up and modernization. The Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005) was successfully implemented, and implementation of the eleventh proceeded smoothly.
¨C The capital's economy reached a new height. According to preliminary statistics, Beijing's gross regional product (GRP) rose from 433.04 billion yuan in 2002 to 900.62 billion yuan in 2007, an average annual increase of over 12%, while per capita GRP topped US$ 7,000. Government revenue totaled 149.26 billion yuan, up 180% from the 2002 level of 53.4 billion yuan. There was an annual drop in energy and water consumption per 10,000 yuan of GRP and in chemical oxygen demand (COD) and sulfur dioxide emissions. The city led the country in conserving energy and cutting back on pollutant discharge.
¨C Reform was further deepened and the city opened wider to the outside world. Significant progress was made in the reform of rural areas, state-owned enterprises, investment, banking, finance and tax, science and technology, and the non-public sectors of the economy continued to grow. The amount of foreign investment actually used totaled $18.36 billion, 1.8 times the amount used in the preceding five-year period. Total import and export volume reached $192.95 billion in 2007, 3.7 times the 2002 figure.
¨C The face of urban and rural areas has been changing rapidly. Transportation construction increased precipitously, and the percentage of people using public transport for trips within the city reached 34.5%, up 6.5 percentage points over 2002. Urban air quality was at level 1 or 2 on 67.4% of the days last year, an improvement of 11.8 percentage points over 2002. The percentage of wastewater treated was 92% in the eight urban districts and 47% in the outlying districts, and the non-toxic disposal of household garbage there was 99% and 76% respectively. Green areas of the city as a whole totaled 51.6%.
¨C Preparations for the 2008 Olympics proceeded smoothly. Construction on 26 Olympic competition venues and 44 training venues was completed. A series of "Good Luck Beijing" competitions were held to test the operation and facilities of Olympic venues, and all work to ensure successful hosting of the Olympics was done well. The urban environmental quality and residents' level of civility constantly improved.
¨C Social development entered a new phase. Progress was made in all education programs, and the capacity for scientific and technological innovation improved substantially. A framework for a social security system covering both urban and rural areas began to take shape. Work to set up a system of public health and community-based health services was basically completed. Cultural programs thrived as never before, and sports developed vigorously.
¨C Living standards improved significantly. Per capita disposable income reached 21,989 yuan for urban residents, an average annual increase of 11.5% in real terms, and 9,559 yuan for rural residents, an average annual increase of 9.1% in real terms. A total of 2.63 million jobs were created over the past five years and the registered unemployment rate was kept below 2.3%. Per capita living space of urban inhabitants topped 20 square meters.
Guided by the Scientific Outlook on Development, this government focused on the following aspects of work over the past five years.
1. Changing the pattern of economic development in the capital and promoting sound and rapid economic development. We conscientiously implemented the macroeconomic regulatory policies and measures of the central authorities. The investment structure constantly improved, the consumption capacity of urban and rural residents gradually grew, total investment in fixed assets increased by 220%, total retail sales of consumer goods grew by 190%, and the balance between investment and consumption in driving the economy improved. We strictly reviewed fixed-asset investment projects and cleared up all problems related to the various types of development zones. We completed the first economic census and second agricultural census, and learned about the basic conditions of secondary and tertiary industries as well as agriculture, rural areas and farmers. We worked out a strategy for developing high-end industries, accelerated development of production-related service industries, cultural and creative industries, high-tech industries and modern manufacturing industries, with the focus on development of functional zones for six major high-end industries. The leading role of the service-based economy was further consolidated, and the proportion of the economy accounted for by tertiary industry topped 71%. We formulated and implemented a plan for developing a circular economy and strengthened measures for conserving energy, water, land and materials and promoted energy conservation in large public buildings and renovation of energy-inefficient buildings. We devoted a great deal of effort to eliminating enterprises that consume excessive quantities of energy and produce excessive amounts of emissions, made steady progress in the relocation of the Shougang Group and other enterprises, resolutely closed down small coalmines, non-coal mining operations and sandstone producers, and supported the efforts of industries to make production cleaner focusing on the petrochemical, building materials and electricity industries. Significant progress was made in conserving energy and decreasing energy consumption in manufacturing industry. The overall trend of the capital's economic development was excellent, demonstrating rapid growth, improving structure, reduced energy and resource consumption and improved performance.

2. Balancing urban and rural development and effectively building a new socialist countryside. The municipal government spent 13.06 billion yuan in agriculture, rural areas and farmers in 2007, 5.2 times the amount for 2002. We set up a working mechanism for building a new countryside in which municipal departments coordinate their actions, integrate their policies, and combine their funds and resources to address rural problems, and these departments shifted the focus of their work to concentrate more on rural areas. We implemented the 221 Action Plan [two surveys, the two supports of science and capital and one comprehensive platform for agricultural information, Tr.], stepped up development of the rural service system, devoted a great deal of effort to the development of specialized farmers' cooperatives, established a policy-based insurance system for agriculture, were the first in China to subsidize agricultural ecological services, and promoted the development of modern urban agriculture. We sped up the formulation of village development plans, intensified development of infrastructure, implemented the project to bring electric lighting to villages, bring central heating to villagers and recycle agricultural resources, and connected all incorporated villages to paved roads. We extended radio and television coverage to every village, relocated more than 30,000 rural households located in areas prone to mudslides or near exhausted mines, and increased the percentage of rural residents with access to safe drinking water from 36% to 79%, thereby significantly improving working and living conditions in rural areas. We fully carried out all the state policies to help agriculture, rural areas and farmers. We completed the work of verifying rural land-use rights, standardized compensation for land expropriated for construction purposes, improved the social safety net for farmers who have had their land expropriated, and increased compensation for land expropriated for green belts around the city and for maintaining them. We established a mechanism for compensating people displaced to develop ecological forest barriers in mountainous areas, created a contingent of personnel to maintain village water sources and highways, and spent a total of 570 million yuan from the municipal treasury to provide more than 60,000 rural residents with steady public service jobs. We devoted more effort to fostering a new type of farmer, instituted an expenditure allowance system at the village level, and developed various types of social programs for rural areas. More policies were adopted to resolve the problems facing agriculture, rural areas and farmers, more efforts were put into resolving them, and more benefits went to farmers over the last five years than any other similar period in history.