BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The following are the key takeaways of the major economic decisions announced by the Chinese authorities in the past week.

-- Regulation on government investment

China's State Council released on Sunday a regulation on government investment to deepen the reform of the country's investment and financing mechanism and enhance law-based administration.

Government investment should be channeled to the public sectors where resources cannot be effectively allocated by the market, and mainly target non-operational projects, according to the regulation.

-- Guidelines on the promotion of integrated urban-rural development

China announced guidelines on the promotion of integrated urban-rural development on Sunday which aimed to eradicate barriers to promote rural revitalization and speed up the modernization of agriculture and rural areas.

The country will break barriers that restrict the free flow of resources -- such as capital, talents, information -- between urban and rural areas, and inject new impetus to the countryside, according to the guidelines.

-- Lower RRR for small and medium-sized banks

China will apply a relatively low required reserve ratio (RRR) for some small and medium-sized banks starting from May 15, the central bank announced Monday.

About 1,000 county-level rural commercial banks will enjoy a favorable RRR of 8 percent, unleashing long-term capital of about 280 billion yuan (41.6 billion U.S. dollars), which will be used as loans to private as well as micro and small enterprises (MSEs), the People's Bank of China said in an online statement.

-- Cutting certification requirements, refining procedures

China's State Council decided to further cut the number of items requiring certification and refine the procedures through institutional innovation to improve government services and foster a more enabling business environment.

The country decided to take further steps to identify unwarranted certification items for abolition and list all certification items deemed necessary.

-- Expressway toll booths at provincial borders to be removed

China will remove all expressway toll booths at provincial borders by the end of this year to facilitate improved traffic and boost logistics efficiency, according to a statement issued after the Sunday State Council executive meeting.

China will enhance modernizing its expressways and promote the popularization of the electronic toll collection system, according to the statement.

-- New measures to boost national development zones

China will move faster to boost innovation in its national economic and technological development zones in terms of openness, technology and institution building to raise the quality of economic growth and cultivate new pacesetters in the reform and opening up, according to a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.

The country will reform and innovate the operation and management model in these zones to improve the business environment. The zones will be supported to implement a simpler approval process for investment projects and the practice of pre-commitment of compliance.

-- Tax preferences for IC, software companies to be extended

The State Council, China's cabinet, on Wednesday decided to continue the preferential corporate income tax policies for integrated circuit (IC) and software companies.

The country will continue to implement the tax cut and exemption policies for both sectors starting from the tax calculation and collection for 2018.