Highlights: Excerpts of Hu Jintao's speech to China Party congress
BEIJING | Wed Nov 7, 2012 10:38pm EST
(Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party began a congress on Thursday at which President Hu Jintao will give up his position as head of the party to his designated successor, Vice President Xi Jinping.
In a speech at the Great Hall of the People, Hu lauded three decades of growth, which have raised China to become the world's second-largest economy after the United States and lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens out of poverty, and laid out priorities and challenges for the future.
Below are highlights of Hu's speech:
POLITICAL REFORM
"The reform of the political structure is an important part of China's overall reform. We must continue to make both active and prudent efforts to carry out the reform of the political structure, and make people's democracy more extensive, fuller in scope and sounder in practice."
FIGHTING CORRUPTION
Hu said the party must make unremitting efforts to combat corruption, promote integrity and stay vigilant against degeneration.
"If we fail to handle this issue well, it could prove fatal to the Party, and even cause the collapse of the Party and the fall of the state."
RULE OF LAW
"We must never let words act in place of the law or (personal) power replace the law; nor will we allow disregard for the law for personal benefit."
ECONOMIC TARGETS
"On the basis of making China's development much more balanced, coordinated and sustainable, we should double its 2010 GDP and per capita income for both urban and rural residents (by 2020).
"We should firmly maintain the strategic focus of boosting domestic demand, speed up the establishment of a long-term mechanism for increasing consumer demand, unleash the potential of individual consumption, increase investment at a proper pace, and expand the domestic market."
ECONOMIC REFORMS
"We should step up efforts to transform to a new growth model and work hard to improve the quality and efficiency of the economy.
"We will give more support to promote development in western provinces and rural areas.
"We will continue to deepen our economic system reform and stick to the policy of expanding domestic demand.
"We will continue to encourage domestic companies to accelerate their steps to make outbound investments.
"We will implement more active policies to promote employment and encourage business start-ups to drive more employment."
STATE INVESTMENTS
"We should unwaveringly consolidate and develop the public sector of the economy, allow public ownership to take diverse forms, deepen the form of state-owned enterprises, improve the mechanisms for managing all types of state assets and invest more state capital in major industries in key fields that comprise the lifeline of the economy and are vital to national security."
FINANCIAL REFORM
"We should develop a multi-level capital market, take steady steps to make interest rates and the renminbi exchange rate more market-based and promote the renminbi's convertibility under the capital account in due course."
MILITARY
"We should act to meet the new requirements of China's national development and security strategies and ensure that the armed forces fully carry out their historic mission in the new stage in the new century."
Hu added that China should implement the military strategy of active defense for the new period; expand and intensify military preparedness; and enhance its capacity to accomplish a wide range of military tasks, the biggest of which is to win a local war in an information age.
MARINE RESOURCES
"We should enhance our capacity for exploiting marine resources, resolutely safeguard China's maritime rights and interests, and build China into a maritime power."
TAIWAN
"We will never allow any person or force to separate Taiwan from China by any means."
(Reporting by Beijing bureau; Compiled by Jason Subler; Editing by Ken Wills)
