was used mainly to cover tax and fee cuts. The trial replacement of business tax with value added tax (VAT) was extended to cover all sectors, slashing the tax burden of businesses for the year by over 570 billion yuan and reducing tax burdens in every sector. A transitional plan for sharing VAT revenue between the central and local governments was formulated and implemented to ensure financial resources of local governments remained unchanged. More local government bonds were issued to replace outstanding debts, reducing interest payments by roughly 400 billion yuan.
A prudent monetary policy was pursued in a flexible and appropriate manner. The M2 money supply increased by 11.3 percent, below our projected target of around 13 percent. We used a range of monetary policy tools to support the development of the real economy.
Measures were taken to upgrade consumption. We unveiled policies to encourage private investment, and saw investment begin to stabilize. We strengthened efforts to manage financial risks. The RMB exchange rate regime continued to improve, and the exchange rate remained generally stable at an adaptive and equilibrium level. We also exercised category-based regulation over the real estate market. By doing this, we have safeguarded China's economic and financial security.
Second, we focused on five priority tasks—cutting overcapacity, reducing excess inventory, deleveraging, lowering costs, and strengthening areas of weakness—thereby improving the composition of supply.
Particular priority was given to cutting overcapacity in the steel and coal sectors. Over the year, steel production capacity was cut by more than 65 million metric tons and coal by over 290 million metric tons, going beyond annual targets. Effective assistance was provided to laid-off employees.
We supported migrant workers in buying urban homes; and we increased the proportion of people affected by rebuilding in rundown urban areas receiving monetary compensation, making good progress in reducing real estate inventory.
Business acquisitions and reorganizations were encouraged, direct financing was promoted, and market- and law-based debt-to-equity swaps were carried out, lowering the debt-to-asset ratio of industrial enterprises.
To help enterprises lower operating costs, we introduced measures to cut taxes and fees, lower the share paid by enterprises for social security
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