CPC sets path to common prosperity

Reform measures

Fung Leung (L) communicates with a staff member on the growth of vegetables at his aquaponics production base in the national agricultural demonstration zone in Kaiping city, Jiangmen, South China's Guangdong Province, on Sept 2, 2021. Victor Lo, Fung Leung and Mandy Tam, all born in the 1990s in Hong Kong, came to the Kaiping national agricultural demonstration zone for their aquaponics research. [Photo/Xinhua]

Policymakers at the Aug 17 meeting laid out measures such as more inclusive and fair conditions to improve education levels and providing wealth creation opportunities for more people.

They highlighted the need to come up with stronger and more targeted steps in taxation, social security and payment transfers to boost the proportion of middle-income people in the population. The meeting also called for tailored measures to enable low-income earners to become middle-income earners, stronger measures to adjust excessively high incomes, protection of legal incomes and encouraging high-income individuals and businesses to contribute more to society.

Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at the Oxford Economics think tank, said the policymakers' emphasis on common prosperity is likely to be pursued principally by scaling up the existing reform directions of public services, taxes, labor protection and regulation. "Common prosperity is about equality of opportunity, more and better access to basic public services, a fairer distribution of income, and encouragement of charity and donations," he said.

Long-discussed reforms and changes, such as the introduction of a property tax, will now get new impetus, he said. "That would be welcome, as it could generate a stable income source for local governments," Kuijs said.

Jia Kang, head of the China Academy of New Supply-Side Economics, said the nation should research and push forward income and property tax reforms to drive common prosperity.

Yao Yang, dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, said in an interview with the Paper that fairer income distribution is only part of the push for common prosperity.

To enable more people to become middle income-class, a key priority for the nation is to raise the level of education, he said, adding that the introduction of a property tax and capital gains tax will contribute to income adjustment.

"If we are to attain common prosperity, the top priority lies in education. To be more accurate, ensuring education equality is a key step," he said.