China’s Xi appealed to private business with wishes
2023.03.06 12:25
China’s Xi appealed to private business with wishes
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that private businesses should be “rich and loving” and share responsibility with state-owned businesses to achieve universal prosperity.
Private Chinese and foreign businesses have been waiting for Beijing to elaborate on how it plans to pursue Xi’s signature initiative to close China’s wealth gap, “common prosperity,” and how private businesses will contribute.
Xi urged private businesses and entrepreneurs to be “patriotic” and actively participate in charitable endeavors during a closed-door meeting with government advisers representing the business sector during the annual session of parliament, according to state radio on Monday.
In what he referred to as a “community of shared interests,” Xi also stated that employees should be fairly distributed the benefits of private companies’ expansion.
Xi was quoted by state radio as saying, “Be rich and loving, be rich and responsible, be rich and helping others.”
Private businesses, according to some analysts, are concerned that Xi’s call for “common prosperity” could result in a de facto tax as debt-ridden local governments struggle to raise funds.
Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, stated to Reuters, “The problem with ‘common prosperity’ is that it can lead to a very uncertain tax burden, unlike the official corporate tax rate as stated by law.”
He stated that it is unfair to expect private businesses to share the social responsibility for “common prosperity” with state-owned businesses, given that state-owned businesses have preferential access to markets and loans that private businesses are not always eligible for.
According to state radio, Xi said on Monday that China would always treat private businesses and entrepreneurs like “family” and promised to remove institutional barriers that prevent private businesses from competing fairly.
Beijing has promised to help the private sector recover from state-imposed COVID restrictions that were lifted in December and a regulatory crackdown in the property, technology, and private education industries.
Xi attributed China’s economic difficulties to the West. “The West has implemented all-around containment to suppress China, led by the United States, bringing unprecedented challenges to China’s development,” Xi was quoted as saying by state radio.
