On the morning of March 6, the Chongqing delegation to the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress held an open group meeting. (Photo/Su Si)

Chongqing - On March 6, the Chongqing delegation to the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress held an open group meeting to review the draft outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan and answer questions from the media. Yuan Jiajun, a deputy to the National People's Congress and Secretary of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee, answered questions from reporters.

Yuan Jiajun, a deputy to the National People's Congress and Secretary of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee, answered questions from the press. (Photo/Su Si)

A reporter from China Media Group (CMG) asked Yuan: During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, how will Chongqing further enhance its function as a comprehensive hub to better serve the national strategy of opening up to the west and south?

Yuan outlined Chongqing's plans, focusing on five key aspects:

1. Chongqing focuses on building "Major Corridors for Opening-up." It will continuously upgrade the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, stabilize operations of the China-Europe Railway Express (Chengdu-Chongqing), accelerate the development of the shipping center's functions in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and expedite construction of the Chongqing International Aviation Hub. By gathering resources, it aims to build a strategic hub linking the Eurasian Economic Corridor.

2. Chongqing focuses on "High-Level Platform Construction." It will focus on developing the Chongqing Hub Port Industrial Park and aim to create a high-quality, efficient development model in which corridors, logistics, and industries integrate and promote one another. The city will implement the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity with high standards, deeply advance the strategy to upgrade the Chongqing Free Trade Zone, and fully release the open development potential of the Liangjiang New Area. 

3. Chongqing focuses on "Reform and Innovation of Land Trade Rules." It will actively align with high-standard international economic and trade rules to create landmark achievements in institutional opening-up for both land and sea. It will promote service models such as "single-document" and "single-container" for multimodal transport, deploy the construction of digital corridors, and create an integrated, comprehensive service system for opening up, striving to explore replicable and promotable experiences for the opening up of inland regions.

4. Chongqing focuses on "Driving Trade and Industry via Corridors." It will strengthen the synergy between foreign trade, foreign investment, and foreign economic cooperation. The city will implement measures to expand into international markets, drive the "Chongqing Vehicles Going Global" initiative, deepen cross-border production capacity cooperation, expand the export of advantageous products in manufacturing and other fields, and integrate more deeply into the global economic and trade landscape.

5. Chongqing focuses on "International Exchange and Cooperation." It will deepen international exchange and cooperation in education, healthcare, and culture. The city aims to build an international exchange platform system, expand its "circle of friends" for international cooperation, enhance service capabilities for international exchanges, and accelerate the construction of the Western China International Communication Organization to improve Chongqing's international visibility and influence.

A reporter from Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao asked Yuan: Chongqing is the city with the largest jurisdictional area and population in China, facing wide-ranging management responsibilities, large differences in urban and rural regional development, and heavy tasks in serving and guaranteeing people's livelihoods. What specific measures has Chongqing taken to improve and continuously enhance the well-being of all citizens?

Yuan introduced Chongqing's measures for ensuring and improving people's livelihoods through six keywords：

1. "Securing the Bottom Line": Chongqing has solidly worked on the effective transition from consolidating poverty alleviation achievements to rural revitalization. It keeps a close eye on low-income populations lifted out of poverty and monitors targets whose risks have not yet been eliminated, ensuring no large-scale return to poverty. Focusing on the basic needs of groups such as those impoverished by illness, the disabled, left-behind children, and low-income households, the city has improved its tiered and classified social assistance system. It steadily raises social assistance standards and relies on communities, grids, and volunteers to provide regular door-to-door assistance, helping solve real-life difficulties and instilling confidence and hope for life.

2. "Employment and Income Growth": Chongqing insists on prioritizing stable employment and income growth. It solidly handles employment guarantees for key groups, launching initiatives such as the Million College Graduates Employment and Entrepreneurship Action and services for migrant workers returning home. It actively provides employment services for new employment categories, such as delivery riders, couriers, ride-hailing drivers, and livestreamers. The city continues to expand the middle-income group and promote income growth for low-income groups, striving to provide people with more and better employment opportunities and higher incomes.

3. "Shared by All": Chongqing strives to promote the balanced supply of high-quality education and medical resources. It promotes the "Educational Community" model, where high-quality schools lead weaker ones and urban schools provide paired assistance to rural ones. It deepens the coordinated reform of medical treatment, medical insurance, and medicine, improves the construction of tight-knit county-level medical consortia, and continuously enhances service levels for the elderly and children, allowing the public to enjoy quality public services at their doorstep.

4. "Safe and Livable": Ensuring safety is vital for the governance of a megacity. Relying on its three-tier digital urban operation and governance center, Chongqing focuses on risk prevention in key areas such as high-rise buildings, underground pipelines, and natural disasters, continuously improving the city's intrinsic safety level. Adhering to the principles of adapting to local conditions and doing its best within its means, the city advances urban renewal in an orderly manner. It continues to treat the renovation of old urban residential areas as a key annual livelihood project, promotes the construction of "Good Houses" that are safe, comfortable, green, and smart, and accelerates the construction of "15-minute high-quality life circles." Through "micro-renovations," it creates "pocket parks," vegetable markets, and community bookstores at people's doorsteps to better meet their needs for improved living environments and convenience.

5. "Common Prosperity": Chongqing is building a "2-hour Chongqing Transportation Circle" to promote the all-around flow of people, information, and capital between urban and rural areas. It is accelerating improvements in rural weak links in drinking water, transportation, and living environments, and vigorously implementing actions to improve rural drinking water quality so that all farmers can drink safe water. It continues to build high-level rural transportation networks and deeply promotes the "Three Revolutions" of domestic sewage treatment, household waste sorting, and the popularization of sanitary toilets, achieving dynamic zero-clearance of black and malodorous water bodies across the region. Simultaneously, it strengthens rural industries, vigorously develops new models such as rural e-commerce and livestreaming sales, expands ecological industries like wellness homestays and rural tourism, strengthens the village collective economy, and guides urban dwellers to enter rural areas to bring more high-quality rural products into cities.

6. "Digital Intelligence Empowerment": Chongqing is solidly promoting the construction of "Digital Chongqing," innovatively creating the "People Call, I Respond" platform to ensure every voice from the public is heard, and every expectation is addressed. Focusing on high-frequency matters for the public, it emphasizes "one thing handled in one go," letting "data run more, and the people walk less." Meanwhile, it strengthens online-offline linkage, pushes resources and power down to the grassroots, deeply practices the "Fengqiao Experience" in the new era, improves the efficiency of conflict resolution, solves difficulties reported by the public on time, and promotes refined grassroots governance and precise services, better achieving the goal of "small matters resolved in the village, major matters in the town, and no escalation of conflicts."

Yuan stated that looking toward the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Chongqing will establish and practice a correct view of performance—creating achievements for the people through solid work—to handle livelihood work with higher standards and greater efficiency, continuously enhancing the people's sense of gain, happiness, security, and identity.