Solid work has moved us forward in the five priority tasks of cutting overcapacity, reducing excess inventory, deleveraging, lowering costs, and strengthening areas of weakness.
Over the past five years, building on work to cut backward production capacity in the cement, plate glass, and other industries, we have intensified efforts to cut overcapacity, prioritizing industries such as steel and coal; and a 100-billion-yuan fund for rewards and subsidies has been put in place by the central government to support efforts to assist affected employees. We have cut steel production capacity by more than 170 million metric tons and coal production capacity by 800 million metric tons, and over 1.1 million affected employees have been assisted.
Thanks to city-specific policies and category-specific guidance, clear progress has been made in reducing commercial residential housing inventory in third- and fourth-tier cities, and the growth of housing prices in the most popular cities has been brought under control.
We have taken active and prudent steps to deleverage, control the scale of debts, and expand equity finance. The debt-to-asset ratio of industrial enterprises has been consistently declining. Macro leverage ratio is increasing by much smaller margins and is generally stable.
We have used a combination of measures to bring down costs: 30 percent of government-managed funds and fees have been cut; over 60 percent of the fees and charges levied on businesses by the central government have been abolished; the ratio of enterprise contributions to old-age pension, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, and maternity insurance, workers' compensation, and housing provident fund schemes has been reduced for the time being, and work has been done to lower energy, logistics, and telecommunications costs.
We have stepped up efforts to strengthen areas of weakness, with a focus on key issues.
We have sped up the replacement of old growth drivers.
We have done more in carrying out the Internet Plus Initiative, exercised accommodative and prudential regulation, and promoted the extensive application of big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things; emerging industries have achieved vigorous growth, and traditional industries have undergone a thorough remodeling.
Implementation of the Made in China 2025 initiative has brought progress in major projects like the building of robust industrial foundations, smart manufacturing, and green manufacturing, and has accelerated the
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