Led by Li, the drafting team carried out field research in multiple sectors, provinces and enterprises. Li presided over seminars to seek expert opinions that could aid in resolving difficult problems.

As vice-premier, Li knew well how difficult coordination could become when multiple departments took charge of the same task. Food safety was supervised by a dozen regulatory bodies, which often led to different regulators passing the buck in terms of doing their duty. Marine surveillance forces were spread among five departments, making them too divided to work together.

Li has strongly advocated change to tackle persistent problems in the railway sector, which operated both as administrative agencies and enterprises. He also demanded the integration of departments in food safety and marine sectors with duplicate functions.

He has also pushed to reduce and decentralize government approvals for investment and businesses, and cut market access examinations and administrative charges. Because many entrepreneurs complain business registry procedures are too complicated, Li helped change the system by granting licenses more freely. Entrepreneurs are now allowed to register their companies by agreeing upon registered capital, instead of actual contributions.

While reviewing a price reform plan for coal and electricity, Li approved of its market orientation but believed that it was too characteristic of a planned economy. "Given that all coal is sold at market price, why are there still restrictions on quantity and price? The contracts between enterprises brook no checks from the government. The contract law shall solely apply," he once said.

The plan had to be further revised for adoption. Now the revised version has been implemented, lending a strong push for coal and electricity reform.

Transformation

The 18th CPC National Congress urged the synchronized development of industrialization, IT application, urbanization and agricultural modernization. During his inspection of the State Grain Administration on Jan 15, Li summarized these "four modernizations," as being similar to the "four modernizations" of agriculture, industry, national defense and science and technology China put forward in the 1950s. New modes of modernization are expected to help China develop through transformation.

Li believes the deep integration of industrialization and IT applications is the orientation and impetus of industrial upgrades. He has noted that the integration of IT and power-generating technology in developed countries can significantly boost the utilization of renewable energy generation by being open to small companies and families.

Because it is difficult to integrate wind and solar power into the grid, Li has called for studying the energy development of foreign countries and opening the grid to small-scale distributed power generation by utilizing information technology. China's National Grid has since been connected to several small solar power generators operated by small companies and families.

He considers urbanization to be the biggest source of development in the coming decades.

Li's doctoral thesis at Peking University, On the Ternary Structure of China's Economy, won the Sun Yefang Economics Prize, the highest honor in Chinese economic circles. It reflected his thorough understanding of both global trends and China's reality. Through deliberation and practice over more than 20 years, Li has nurtured strategic theories of new urbanization.

He believes that China's urbanization should be conducted using advanced concepts and managerial expertise from abroad. He was deeply impressed by the urban layout of European cities, as well as their living environment and public services, during visits in the 1980s and 1990s.

In 2012, when he was preparing to visit Europe as vice-premier, he proposed holding a high-level China-Europe forum on urbanization. One month later, almost 600 experts, businessmen and officials from China and Europe gathered in Brussels to discuss sustainable city planning and infrastructure building. The forum became a new platform for strategic and practical cooperation between China and Europe.

Li has been pondering how to achieve a unification of scientific development and cultural progress in the process of urbanization. He has repeatedly stressed that urbanization should be a people-first initiative ambition that will eventually enrich rural residents and benefit the entire population. A key issue is to help more than 200 million farmers-turned-migrant-workers gradually adapt to urban life.

During his tour to an economic development zone in Jiujiang city of Jiangxi province in December, Li went to the homes of migrant workers and listened to their views on employment, income, housing, social security and education for their offspring. He later urged local officials to help the workers resolve these problems.