Shenzhen is geared up and ready to start out the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) well, having set major goals for 2021 as well as development targets and key tasks for the years until 2025.

“This year marks both the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan. It is crucial to have a good start,” said Shenzhen Acting Mayor Qin Weizhong.

Qin made the remarks when delivering the government work report at the opening meeting of the First Session of the Seventh Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress, the city’s legislature, at the Civic Center in Futian District on Saturday.

Shenzhen has set its GDP growth target at around 6.5 percent for this year, according to the work report. The city’s general public budget revenue is expected to grow by about 5 percent, while the fixed asset investment is projected to increase by over 8 percent.

The city government expects the total retail sales of social consumer goods to grow by over 10 percent and the total value of imports and exports to go up by about 2 percent this year. The added value of industries above the designated size is forecast to rise by over 3.5 percent.

It is also expected that the per capita disposable income of residents will maintain steady growth in 2021 and that the city will achieve its targets on energy conservation and emission reduction.

The government work report has outlined a plan covering 10 specific areas for this year, which includes the implementation of the “10 major plans” for improving the economic and social development and a series of comprehensive pilot reforms.

The city will press ahead with the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), strive to become a hub of innovation with global influence, promote its urban governance system, and enhance the integrated development of the whole city, while improving the city’s soft power, living standards, and ecological environment.

Shenzhen will focus on 15 projects to further improve the well-being of residents in the year 2021.

These projects include increasing supplies of quality schools, public housing, medical resources and free health screening service while exploring inclusive nursing service, providing more job opportunities, improving on-duty skills, enhancing livelihood guarantees, and offering quality health service for the elderly, convenient traffic for public commuting, and improving quality service in water and gas supplies, according to the government work report delivered by Shenzhen Acting Mayor Qin Weizhong at the First Session of the Seventh Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress.

In 2021, the city plans to provide an additional 130,000 school places and build 80,000 units of public housing, 35,000 units of which will be made available this year.

In densely populated public areas, the city will install 2,000 AEDs. It will provide 170,000 new job opportunities, optimize 85 bus routes and complete potable water projects in 600 housing estates.

Since 2013, the city government has adopted a task list mechanism and established a related supervisory mechanism. The progress of the task list from 2020 were written into the government work report as an independent appendix, and the completion of each task was elaborated in details item by item.