Beijing, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Qiang presided over an executive meeting of The State Council on March 24, 2019. The meeting determined the division of work for The State Council in 2023, studied and improved partial preferential policies for tax and fees, deliberated the work plan for the key tasks of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and listened to a report on the progress made in strengthening and expanding poverty alleviation.

 The meeting stressed that all departments and units should further refine policies and measures according to the division of labor, formulate and improve specific implementation plans, and earnestly implement them. Leading departments should be brave enough to shoulder their responsibilities, and relevant departments should actively cooperate to form a joint force for implementation. We must closely follow developments and changes in the situation, conduct in-depth investigations and studies, and promptly improve policies in light of the situation at the community level. We will strengthen supervision and inspection to ensure that key work is effectively implemented.

The meeting decided to extend and optimize the implementation of some preferential tax and fee policies in stages to further stabilize expectations and strengthen confidence, including the policy of increasing the pre-tax deduction rate for R&D expenses of enterprises in eligible industries from 75% to 100%, which will be implemented as an institutional arrangement on a long-term basis. We will continue to implement by the end of 2027 the policy of halving urban land use tax on land used by logistics enterprises for bulk commodity storage and the policy of reducing employment security payments for the disabled. We will extend to the end of 2024 the policy of reducing the annual taxable income of small and micro enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households by no more than 1 million yuan, and the policy of reducing unemployment and work-related injury insurance premiums. We will continue to implement zero tariffs on coal imports until the end of this year. The above policies are expected to reduce the burden by more than 480 billion yuan annually. Meeting requirements, to do a good job of policy publicity, actively send policies to the door, to ensure that enterprises should enjoy.

The meeting adopted a work Plan for Implementing the Spirit of the Central Rural Work Conference and Key Tasks in the No. 1 Document of the Central Committee.  All relevant departments and units should earnestly shoulder their responsibilities, implement policies to reduce grain production support, and ensure that annual grain output remains above 50 million metric tons. We will comprehensively promote rural revitalization, develop industries with special characteristics in light of local conditions, and expand channels for farmers to increase their incomes and get richer.

The meeting stressed that the comprehensive victory in poverty alleviation is a great practice carried out under the leadership of the CPC and the people, and a virtuous policy for thousands of years. We must make it a major political task to consolidate and expand our achievements in poverty alleviation, continue to tighten the responsibilities of all parties, fully implement policies and work, focus on vulnerable areas, key groups and key links, and firmly ensure that poverty does not return to scale. We need to strengthen the orientation of promoting development, and all financial support, project arrangements and assistance policies must be planned and implemented with development in mind. We need to maintain overall stability of major support policies during the transition period and plan regular support mechanisms after the transition as soon as possible.

Source: Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China