Full coverage: China’s Leaders

Premier Li Keqiang urged more efforts to benefit enterprises through further tax and fee reductions during a meeting held last week.

“Even though it may result in a tight budget, the government’s primary target for 2017 will still focus on tax and fee reform, especially for enterprises,” said Premier Li.

To fully understand the progress made in reducing taxes and fees, Premier Li turned to the heads of both traditional and newly emerging enterprises, including CRRC Corp, TCL Group and Mobike.

Gao Peiyong, director of the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the overall tax burden in China is almost equal to those in Europe and the US, but the burden for enterprises remains relatively high.

“To speed up tax and fee reductions for enterprises, we need to cut arbitrary fees while reducing institutional costs,” the Premier said.

And Premier Li made it clear that the government should scale back public spending and improve efficiency, in an effort to spare more room to relieve enterprises’ burden.

In recent years, said Premier Li, China’s business environment has been improving, but more work should be done to further streamline administration, decentralize power and improve services, with the goal of lowering institutional costs and releasing market vitality.

Premier Li said the State Council will carry out inspections this year to ensure all taxes and fees are charged according to regulations. And more effective measures will be implemented to ease the pain points of enterprises and people, said the Premier.