Hu Maoren: The message of the Central Economic Work Conference

At this year's Central Economic Work Conference, although some of the mentions have been mentioned in the past, there are still some remarks that have not been mentioned in the past, and they can indeed arouse people's attention and interest.

The meeting mentioned that "next year, we must adhere to the principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, promote stability with progress, establish first and then break, and introduce more policies that are conducive to stabilizing expectations, stabilizing growth and stabilizing employment." In fact, for many years, we have also been emphasizing this word of stability, during the epidemic, because the economy has indeed been greatly affected, so in the hearts of some people, they hope that the economy will improve quickly, and look forward to a greater improvement in people's income and quality of life. However, in reality, due to a variety of complex internal and external factors, these factors may have a negative impact on the healthy growth of our country's economy. Therefore, being overly anxious to improve the economy as soon as possible and demanding that the people's income and quality of life can be improved relatively quickly in a relatively short period of time is not necessarily realistic. Moreover, if we do not do it well, those complicated factors at home and abroad may interfere with the healthy development of our economy. Because if you are in a hurry to improve, you may take a bigger step, the speed may be faster, and a large and fast step may lead to an unsteady process. If it's unstable, there's more risk and it's possible to fall a few big heels. If we really fall on such a few heels, we will encounter more troubles and difficulties if we want to achieve the ideal development speed. The masses of the people at home will complain, and those forces in the international community that are hostile to China will take advantage of the opportunity to cause chaos. If that happens, then we won't be able to gain more than we gain.

Therefore, in view of the specific situation at present, it is still necessary to focus on stability. Party and government leaders in some localities always feel that they need to make some political achievements, always want to go faster, and always want to make their political achievements more prominent than those in other places. Such an idea is certainly problematic. Pursuing local achievements too much and not focusing on the overall situation is out of touch with reality, and its starting point is also very narrow.

Seek progress in stability, and promote stability with progress. Emphasizing stability does not mean giving up on progress, but this progress needs to be cautious, and we cannot fail to advance or make rash advances. It's not easy to grasp. Indeed, stability and progress are a pair of dialectical relations, and we cannot take one end and discard the other. If we do not persist in stability, we will not be able to effectively promote this progress; if we do not make progress, this stability will be meaningless to a certain extent. Therefore, we must find out the main contradictions between stability and progress in the region in light of the specific conditions of each locality, and then adjust the relationship between stability and progress in light of the actual capacity and resources of the region. Of course, it is not realistic to want to be stable and progressive. However, in the process of strengthening stability and promoting progress, we should monitor at any time, be ready to discover possible problems at any time, adjust specific policies and measures in a timely manner, and do our best to solve possible problems in the bud.

The so-called stable expectations means that the goals of our initial assumptions and plans cannot be changed arbitrarily. Originally, our expected development goals were based on the specific circumstances of the previous year. If, in the course of economic development, some more favorable factors for growth emerge, some people may become excited and want to increase the expected targets a little more, or raise them higher. If the expected goals are added or changed, it is necessary to adjust and change the specific measures to achieve these expected goals. Such measures will certainly add a greater burden than the original intended targets. Once the situation changes and the expected goal cannot be achieved, it is difficult to change it back. This can easily cause turmoil and emotional instability in people's hearts, thus bringing certain uncertain or unstable factors to society, which will have an adverse impact on our economic development.

The so-called steady growth means that the growth rate should not be fast or slow. We should not blindly accelerate the growth rate just as soon as we see that the situation is relatively good and there are many favorable factors. This is mainly due to the lack of a sufficiently sober and comprehensive understanding of the complex factors that objectively exist. If we only see the positive and the positive, and do not understand the negative or negative aspects, then our growth may also face more risks and challenges. The first thing is to make sure that our economy is growing, not declining. As for whether the rate of growth is fast or slow, high or low, it is not something that we particularly need to adjust. As long as it is growing, it is a positive trend, and there is no need to increase the original scheduled speed.

The so-called stable employment. It is even more difficult to deal with and solve this problem. The issue of employment is multifaceted and involves a considerable number of complex factors. If an enterprise is facing greater difficulties in production and sales, it is a big problem for the enterprise to provide a certain number of jobs. If some state-owned enterprises are doing well and making a slight profit, it is not too difficult for such enterprises to absorb more employees for employment. However, if more employees are absorbed, the welfare of the original employees of the enterprise may be affected. But that's not a big deal. If the company is not profitable, and there is even a certain range of losses, in this case, it is basically impossible to ask the company to absorb more employees to join the company. For private enterprises, the state does not have a law to force private enterprises to recruit more employees, and the state or local governments can introduce some policies to encourage employment. But no matter what kind of incentive policy, it needs to be paid by the government. If the local government's finances are in good shape, this may be possible. But if many local governments are now saddled with more debt, there is a greater risk in doing so.

It is not easy to encourage individuals to start their own businesses. Many people don't have much impulse to start a business because the economy is not very good now. More people are too risky to start a business, and they are not willing to let themselves take such a big risk all at once, and it will be difficult for them to face problems in the future. This also requires the encouragement and assistance of the government. Of course, the government should have a clear understanding of the basic state of local employment and the emerging industries that may develop locally, so that it may be able to achieve certain results in encouraging individuals to work or start businesses in a targeted manner.

In addition, in the context of the continuous development of high-tech industries, the emerging industries that provide services for these high-tech industries should become a key focus of local governments to stabilize employment. If there is indeed a certain scale of high-tech industry in the region, it is entirely possible for the local government to take the initiative to prepare or organize some small-scale enterprises under collective ownership to provide services for such a high-tech industry. Local governments can also encourage individuals or private enterprises to participate in such service industries. Local governments can also take the initiative to organize some industry training, recruit people to be employed to receive relevant professional and technical training, and then they may enter the type of collective-owned enterprises organized by the government to find employment. It will take a lot of effort on the part of the government to do this. In addition, the government may also unite with relatively successful or mature enterprises and encourage them to set up small-scale collective-owned enterprises that serve their own industries. Or there are several large enterprises of this type to join forces to jointly set up such a service industry enterprise. The benefits of this may reduce the burden on some governments, and in addition, it can also meet the new needs of enterprises themselves.

The Central Economic Work Conference has placed special emphasis on the development of high-tech industries and high-quality economic growth, all of which involve the development and growth of high-tech industries. Then the corresponding service work or business must also be extremely needed by those high-tech enterprises. As long as our relevant departments are willing to work hard and go deep into the grassroots and the front line to do detailed investigation and research, it is not impossible to solve the employment problem in such a service industry.

(The author is a professor at Beihang University and a senior researcher at Kunlun Ce Research Institute; source: Kunlun Ce Network [author's authorization], revised and released)