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discussions with leaders of several southern and central
provinces in Guangzhou, apparently taking over from Zhu. Jiang's meeting with the provincial leaders received nationwide publicity on 4 October. He was reported to have called for
sustained, balanced and fast development, echoing a recent comment by Deng Xiaoping emphasising the "absolute importance of
development".
A4.
Zhu also called for speeding up development in a speech in Shanghai on 23 October but in general maintained a somewhat
lower profile than of late. WWP (3 Nov) quoted a Japanese Jiji news agency report quoting People's Bank Vice-President Chen Yuan as saying that Zhu Rongji's appointment as President of the People's Bank was a transitional measure for dealing with the
problems of inflation and adjusting the financial system and that he was likely to relinquish the post next year.
A5.
The focus remained predominantly on Jiang Zemin who made various highly publicised appearances and speeches, presided over the November plenum and again received full-scale publicity when he attended the Seattle APEC meeting.
Li Peng
also remained active. So did Qiao Shi in his role as Chairman
of the National People's Congress, but he was replaced by Hu Jintao as President of the Higher Party School.
A6.
According to a WWP report (22 Nov), further discussions
on tax reforms will be held during a national economic
conference in December. Comments by some senior officials
suggest that the leadership will adopt a cautious approach, in view of provincial leaders' tenacity in defending their interests. Some details of the planned changes were given in two CDBW reports (14 and 19 Nov) quoting leaders of the State
Tax Administration. They said that domestic enterprises would pay a unified tax rate of 33% from next year; regulatory taxes
on large state enterprises and the compulsory 55% levy on their
revenue would be eliminated; foreign-funded enterprises would
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