Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has stressed the importance of providing relief to businesses and stimulating market vitality during his inspection tour to east China's Shandong Province from Monday to Tuesday.

Li on Monday called for efforts to channel new government funding to help medium-sized, small and micro enterprises overcome difficulties caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Li made the remarks at a symposium in Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province attended by senior officials from Shandong, east China's Zhejiang and Anhui provinces, southwest China's Guizhou Province and northwest China's Shaanxi Province. 

According to a government work report that Li delivered on May 22, China plans to set its fiscal deficit above 3.6 percent of GDP in 2020, resulting in a deficit rise of 1 trillion yuan (about 141 billion U.S. dollars) from last year. It will also issue 1 trillion yuan in government bonds for COVID-19 control.

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Premier Li sets out China's plan to overcome COVID-19 challenges

Graphics: Key targets for 2020 in China's government work report

Li said the policies are aimed at helping businesses, ensuring employment and people's livelihoods and revitalizing the market, noting that the new funding will go straight to prefecture and county governments and directly benefit businesses and people. 

Medium-sized, small and micro enterprises, individual businesses, low-income people and those living in difficulty have been hit particularly hard by the outbreak, involving hundreds of millions of people, he said, stressing that the new funds will be mainly channeled to these groups. 

He also called for establishing a strict mechanism to oversee the use of the funds. 

Noting that the number of college graduates will reach a new high this year, Li said he hopes companies can recruit more college graduates, adding that the central government will also provide support. 

Earlier on Monday, the premier visited an industrial park and a local community in Yantai City, Shandong. Li talked with small business owners and pledged to take further measures to increase financial support for them and boost employment. 

The premier said the renovation of such communities can improve people's living conditions and drive up consumption of home decoration and home appliances. He encouraged social capital to take part in such projects and called for an accelerated pace of renovation. 

Li also visited Haier Group and inspected series of self-developed intellectual products, encouraging them to constantly innovate and urging relevant authorities to come up with reform measures to explore the development of large enterprises in coordination with the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the integration of various industries, so as to drive more employment. 

China aims to add over nine million new urban jobs in 2020 and keep the surveyed urban unemployment rate at around six percent, according to the government work report.