Home / Press Conferences

Text of Premier Li's press conference

(chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2015-03-15 14:07:30

8.03K

Q: I am with China Business News. Mr Premier, on many occasions you stressed the importance of the mass entrepreneurship and innovation regard as the new engine viewing China's economic growth.

There are also people who say that it is a personal decision to start a business and should be a market economy behavior. So why should the government spend so much time and energy on this?

A: I appreciate your intention of saving the government much time and energy. This is something the government must do, because mass entrepreneurship and innovation in itself is a major reform endeavor and this reform is also inspired by the experience we have gained from the past experiences.

More than 30 years ago it was the introduction of household contracts responsibility system that has brought into full play the initiative of the vast number of Chinese farmers, because our people could move freely across provinces and cities. Now tens of thousands of Chinese farmers have migrated into cities, which has created is the miracle of China's economic development.

Last year when the government pursued the reform of the business systems to streamline its administration, I recalled that I paid a visit to one of the local venues for business registration and I came across a woman who was already retired.

At that time, the government just replaced the paid-in-capital registration requirements. This has given much enthusiasm to those who wanted to start their own business. This woman is one: she told me that she wanted to register a wedding service company because she was well versed with the traditional ways of holding such wedding ceremonies.

She believed she had competitive edge in providing such services so she wanted to register a company under her name. I also paid several visits to these on venture cafes and makers' spaces, where I see that the young people there - they have brilliant ideas - and when their ideas are put into practice and produce actual products, they actually boost market demand. I believe there are a lot of people with real talents among the people and we must lift all the restrictions so that they can bring their talent to best use.

To boost market vitality, the government must eliminate roadblocks and pave the way for people to tap their entrepreneurship.

The government plans to do more in this regard in 2015.

Market access will be further relaxed; business license and all the required certificates will be required to be integrated into one single certificate; and people shouldn't have to go to so much trouble to get business registered in some areas of the services sector.

The government also needs to foster more favorable conditions especially for those micro and small-businesses; there needs to be the availability of low-rent maker spaces to add wings to entrepreneurship of our people. The government will also fully leverage the national guidance fund to encourage the participation of seed capital and also our taxes and fees will be further reduced to ensure that those small businesses will be able to forge ahead with a light pack.

A country could achieve prosperity when his people see in initiative is brought into full play. There will be much vitality in economic activity when there's ample business opportunities and choices for consumers.

To encourage mass entrepreneurship and innovation we want to help more people become better off and help more people achieve full potential in their life. This will also help us adjust the income distribution structure and promote social fairness.

In particular we want to ensure that young people especially those children from poor families will have equal access to opportunities for upward mobility. Thank you.