The National Development Planning Law has been reviewed and approved at the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress and officially implemented. What is the background for formulating the National Development Planning Law? What role does it play in ensuring the quality of planning? The head of the Planning Department of the National Development and Reform Commission provided an interpretation on the 19th. Q: What is the background for formulating the National Development Planning Law? Answer: Through the leadership's formulation and implementation of the 15 Five Year Plan, our party has led the people of all ethnic groups in the country to achieve a historic leap from poverty and poverty to solving basic needs and achieving comprehensive prosperity. We have continuously written new chapters of the two miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stability, becoming an important experience in governing the country and an important political advantage of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. The formulation and promulgation of the National Development Planning Law aims to establish the successful experience of our party's leadership in formulating and implementing plans as legal norms, better play the role of the rule of law in consolidating the foundation, stabilizing expectations, and benefiting the long-term, and continuously transform institutional advantages into development advantages. Q: The law stipulates the procedures for formulating national development plans. What role does this play in ensuring the quality of the plans? Answer: A complete program and scientific content are the key guarantees and supports for fully demonstrating the status and role of national development planning. In more than 70 years of exploration and practice, China has formed a system arrangement under the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, in which the Party Central Committee formulates suggestions, the State Council formulates planning outlines, and the National People's Congress reviews and approves them before publishing and implementing them. The procedures for preliminary research, draft preparation, listening to opinions, connecting and demonstrating, deliberation, and review and approval of plans have matured and taken shape. The National Development Planning Law has established these long-term and effective procedures for formulating national development plans, and has made systematic provisions on the main content, formulation principles, work requirements, and related procedures of national development plans. For example, in the early stage of research, it is necessary to comprehensively and deeply study the global, forward-looking, critical, and deep-seated major issues of economic and social development, and propose basic ideas for promoting high-quality development; The preparation of the draft should take into account various factors such as supporting conditions, resource and environmental carrying capacity, and strengthen multi angle argumentation and multi scheme comparison; Listening to opinions should adhere to the unity of top-level design and consultation with the people, and adopt various forms to widely listen to the opinions and suggestions of the people and other aspects, in order to establish standardized procedures and ensure the high quality of planning. Q: From what aspects does the law make provisions to ensure and improve the quality and effectiveness of the implementation of national development plans? Answer: The implementation of national development plans relies on the support and guarantee of various plans, macro policies, resource factors, etc., as well as the tracking and effectiveness of the progress of plan implementation. The Third and Fourth Plenary Sessions of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China have made clear arrangements for various plans and policies to ensure the implementation of national development plans, strengthen monitoring, evaluation, and supervision of plan implementation. The National Development Planning Law is based on the institutional arrangements for improving the quality and efficiency of planning implementation since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and has made systematic provisions. The National Development Planning Law clearly stipulates that the implementation of the national development plan should be coordinated with other planning policies to ensure the implementation of the national development plan. The annual plan should be implemented on an annual basis, and various levels and types of plans such as national land and space planning, special planning, and regional planning should be implemented to implement the national development plan. Various policies such as finance and banking should obey and serve the national development plan. Central financial funds and other elements should prioritize the protection of major strategic tasks, major policy measures, and major engineering projects determined in the national development plan, further strengthening the rigid constraints on supporting the implementation of the plan in all aspects, and effectively promoting the implementation of the goals and tasks determined in the plan. Regarding the improvement of the implementation mechanism of the national development plan, the National Development Planning Law stipulates that dynamic monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the national development plan should be strengthened, and the monitoring and evaluation results should serve as an important basis for strengthening and improving the implementation of the national development plan; Organize mid-term evaluation and summary evaluation of the implementation of the national development plan during the mid-term stage and before the end of the planning period, and form evaluation reports; After obtaining the approval of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the mid-term evaluation report shall be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in accordance with the law, and the summary evaluation report shall be submitted to the National People's Congress in accordance with the law, consciously accepting the supervision of the National People's Congress and society; Supervisory and auditing agencies shall supervise the implementation of the plan within their respective responsibilities in accordance with the law. The law has made clear provisions on the monitoring and evaluation mechanism and corresponding supervision requirements for the full cycle of planning implementation, which will further enhance the execution and implementation strength of national development plans. Q: Compared to the previously reviewed draft, the law has added content such as coordinating the preparation of various levels and types of planning and involving local planning. What are the considerations? Answer: Fully leveraging the strategic guidance role of national development planning cannot be achieved without the support and guarantee of other levels and types of planning, such as special planning, regional planning, and national spatial planning. The review and approval of development plans at or above the county level by the people's congresses, and the formulation and implementation of corresponding levels by the people's governments, are the powers and responsibilities granted by the Constitution. The Party Central Committee and the State Council have also put forward clear requirements for strengthening the connection between plans. However, in practical applications, there are still some problems such as excessive quantity, low quality, and overlapping of other plans, which not only affect the quality and efficiency of planning, but also increase the burden on grassroots. In the process of formulating the National Development Planning Law, the decision and deployment of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on improving the unified planning system were implemented, and a special section was added to "the state coordinates the preparation of various levels and types of plans, strengthens the connection and coordination between plans". The supplementary provisions also make provisions for the preparation and connection of local plans, mainly to promote the pragmatic preparation of plans by various regions and departments, effectively reduce the quantity of planning preparation, continuously improve the quality, and significantly reduce the burden on grassroots. (New Society)