– We balanced economic and social development to improve people's livelihood and promote social equity and justice. To put people's needs first was the most visible highlight in China's development in the past decade. We took improvement of people's lives as the starting point and ultimate goal of all our work, and made real efforts to make development fruits shared by all. We pursued a proactive employment policy. Over 100 million new urban jobs were created in the past ten years, including more than 10 million jobs annually for the past five consecutive years. We made free nine-year compulsory education fully available, established a complete financial aid system for students from poor families and fulfilled our solemn commitment of "not letting a single child drop out of school due to poverty". We made historic progress in building a social safety net covering both urban and rural populations. The new rural pension scheme and the old-age pension scheme for non-working urban residents achieved full coverage, and an urban and rural social aid system was basically established. The medical insurance system covering the entire population took initial shape. More than 1.3 billion urban and rural residents subscribed to the programs and the coverage of basic medical insurance programs topped 95%. We took active steps to adjust income distribution. Basic pension for enterprise retirees increased at an average annual rate of 10% for eight consecutive years. Minimum wage, threshold for personal income tax and the national poverty line were significantly raised. The per capita urban disposable income and per capita rural net income increased at an average annual rate of 9.2% and 8.1% respectively in real terms, making the past decade one of the fastest-growing periods in the history of New China. And, rural income grew faster than urban income in the past two years. We earnestly implemented the UN Millennium Development Goals. China became the only country in the world to meet the goal of cutting its poor population by half ahead of schedule. We scaled up input in building low-income housing and raised its coverage from less than 4% in 2008 to the current 11%. Hundreds of millions of Chinese families and the towns and villages where they live and work experienced tremendous changes in these past ten years, and there were numerous touching stories of Chinese people changing their lives and destinies through hard work and perseverance.
——坚持深化改革和扩大开放，着力增强经济社会发展的活力与动力。这十年，中国改革攻坚不断取得新突破，继续成为最鲜明的时代特征。我们加快构建充满活力、富有效率、更加开放、有利于科学发展的体制机制。我们不断完善公共财政体系，把预算外资金全部纳入预算管理，实现预算、决算公开，统一内外资企业税制，全面实施增值税转型，加快推进营业税改征增值税试点，推进成品油价格和税费改革，在全国范围内实施原油、天然气资源税从价计征改革。全面深化金融改革，国有大型商业银行股份制改革顺利完成并成功上市，平稳解决上市公司股权分置问题，人民币汇率形成机制和利率市场化改革有序推进，金融体系竞争力、抗风险能力显著提高，在应对国际金融危机冲击中发挥了关键作用。深化农村综合改革，彻底取消了农业税，集体林权制度改革有序推进，草原承包经营登记依法开展。毫不动摇地巩固和发展公有制经济，毫不动摇地鼓励、支持、引导非公有制经济发展，平等保护物权，多种所有制经济共同发展，竞争力和整体实力明显增强。随着改革不断深化，广大人民的积极性、主动性、创造性明显提高，经济社会发展充满新的生机与活力。我们大力实施互利共赢的开放战略，全面履行加入世贸组织的承诺，坚持出口和进口并重，利用外资和对外投资并举，不仅拓展了自己的发展空间，促进了中国经济发展，也为区域和世界经济发展作出了重要贡献。
– We deepened reform and opening-up to boost the vitality and momentum of economic and social development. China's reform made continuous breakthroughs in the past decade. This has been the most distinctive feature of our time. We accelerated the building of institutions and mechanisms that are dynamic, efficient, open and conducive to scientific development. We improved the public finance system, placed all extrabudgetary funds under budgetary management and made public budgets and final accounts. We unified the tax regimes for Chinese and foreign businesses, carried out a comprehensive VAT reform and speeded up the trial program of replacing business tax with VAT. We pushed forward the pricing and tax reform of refined oil products and launched a price-based reform of resource tax on crude oil and natural gas across the country. We deepened reform in the financial sector. The share-holding reform of large state-owned commercial banks and their listing on the stock market were completed, the problem of split-share structure in listed companies was smoothly resolved and the reform of RMB exchange rate forming mechanism and reform of making interest rates market-based moved forward steadily. Our financial system became much more competitive and resilient to risks, and played an essential role in countering the international financial crisis. We deepened comprehensive rural reform, completely rescinded agricultural taxes, pressed ahead with the reform of tenure in collective forests and launched registration for contracting pastureland in accordance with the law. We unwaveringly consolidated and developed the public sector of the economy, unswervingly encouraged, supported and guided the development of the non-public sector, and ensured equal protection of property rights. All economic sectors developed side by side and their competitiveness and overall strength markedly improved. The deepening of the reform process highly motivated the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of the people and injected new vigor and vitality into our economic and social development. We pursued a win-win strategy of opening-up, fully met our commitments made upon WTO accession, and placed equal emphasis on exports and imports and on attracting foreign investment and investing overseas. This has not only helped us gain broader space for our development and economic growth, but also made important contribution to economic development in the region and the world.
回望十年来走过的每一步，我对古老而又常青的祖国，始终充满了深情，充满了热爱，充满了信心。十年的奋斗，我们推动经济社会发展迈上了一个大台阶，为今后发展奠定了更加坚实的物质、技术和体制基础。今天的中国，新的经济增长点不断形成和壮大，科技和教育支撑能力明显提升，社会资金供给充裕，劳动力整体素质大为改善，基础设施日益完善，体制机制更加健全，各类企业更具活力，政府宏观调控水平显著提高，社会政治环境保持稳定，特别是我们确立了科学发展道路，这些都是长期起作用的重要因素。中国发展仍然处于重要战略机遇期，深入推进工业化、城镇化、信息化和农业现代化，将继续释放出巨大的发展潜力，中国经济这艘巨轮一定能够继续平稳快速前进，驶向更加光明的未来!
As I look back at each and every step I took in the past ten years, strong emotions well up inside me. They are emotions of a deep love and strong confidence that I have always cherished towards my beloved country, an ancient civilization brimming with youthful energy. Through ten years of hard work, we have elevated our economic and social development to a new level and laid a more solid material, technological and institutional foundation for future development. In today's China, new growth areas keep emerging and strengthening. Science, technology and education are playing a bigger role in driving economic development. There are ample supply of social funds, a better educated labor force, improved infrastructural facilities and a sound institutional framework. There is booming businesses, improved macro-regulation by the government and a stable social and political environment. In particular, we have established a path of scientific development. All these are important factors that will make a difference for a long time to come. China is still in an important period of strategic opportunities for development. The advance of industrialization, urbanization, information technology and agricultural modernization will continue to unleash huge development potential and the giant ship of the Chinese economy will sail ahead fast yet steadily and reach the shore of a brighter future.
