Full text: Report on national economic, social development

8. We will strengthen social development with the focus on improving people's well-being and do all we can to safeguard social harmony and stability.

1) We will follow an even more vigorous employment policy. We will vigorously develop labor-intensive industries, small and medium-sized enterprises, the non-public sector and service industries; establish a mechanism for stimulating employment with public investment; and strive to create more jobs. This year, 6.3 million students will graduate from colleges and universities, and there are some who graduated in previous years but still have not found jobs, with both groups increasing pressure on employment. We need to do a good job of providing them with employment services and help them find employment at the local community level. We will increase employment assistance and support for disadvantaged groups and encourage more people to start their own businesses or find jobs for themselves. We will effectively implement our employment policies concerning rural migrant workers.

2) We will improve the social safety net. We will implement the unified nationwide methods for transferring basic old-age pension accounts for workers of urban enterprises who move from one region to another. We will expand the pilot program for a new old-age insurance system for rural residents, especially in border counties, poverty-stricken counties in ethnic minority areas, and pastoral areas. We will study and solve the problem of how to provide basic old-age pensions to retirees of collectively owned enterprises who are not covered by the basic old-age insurance system, and address other longstanding problems related to social security. We will improve the basic medical insurance system for non-working urban residents and the new type of rural cooperative medical care system, and gradually raise the levels of financing, government subsidies and benefits. We will increase support and assistance to the low-income population, improve the system of subsistence allowances for urban and rural residents, and further raise these allowances. We will quickly develop the ability to provide public services related to social security. The number of urban residents covered by basic old-age insurance and basic medical insurance will increase by 5 million and 9.4 million respectively this year. We will continue to do a good job of providing work-relief and relocating people from inhospitable areas as a poverty relief effort. An additional 760,000 people will be relocated for this purpose, and 4.1 million more rural residents will be lifted out of poverty.

3) We will give top priority to education. We will promulgate and implement the Outline of the National Long- and Medium-term Program for Education Reform and Development. We will make further progress in improving the operating conditions of schools in rural and poor areas, renovating the buildings of rural junior secondary schools in the central and western regions, and implementing the national program to ensure the safety of primary and secondary school buildings. We will improve the development of preschool education and the construction of special education schools. We will continue to implement the May 1998 Program, the third phase of the 211 Project, and the project to improve the infrastructure for secondary vocational education. We will support the development of ethnic minority colleges and universities and bilingual education in ethnic minority areas. We will increase support for the development of higher education in the central and western regions. The secondary gross enrollment ratio will reach 80%, and plans call for enrolling 6.57 million undergraduate students and 534,000 graduate students in regular institutions of higher learning in 2010, up 2.7% and 4.5% from last year respectively.

4) We will strengthen public medical and health care services. We will improve the systems for medical and health care services and family planning services at the community level; continue to renovate and build a number of county-level hospitals and health care facilities in towns, townships and urban communities; support the development of key traditional Chinese medicine hospitals; and launch a plan to set up a system to prevent and treat mental health problems. Hospitals and health clinics will provide 3.08 hospital beds per 1,000 people in 2010, up 3.7%. We will take effective measures to prevent and control influenza A (H1N1) and other major communicable diseases.

5) We will intensify efforts to ensure an adequate housing supply. We will increase government funding by allocating 44 billion yuan of capital construction investment in the central government budget to accelerate the construction of low-rent housing and other low-income housing; support the renovation of dilapidated rural houses and the run-down areas in cities, state-owned industrial and mining areas, forest regions, and land reclamation zones; and continue to build permanent homes for nomadic herdsmen. As required, we will spend no less than 10% of the net income from the transfer of land-use rights on construction of low-rent housing. We plan to build 3 million units of low-income housing; improve the houses of 2.8 million families living in all kinds of run-down areas; renovate dilapidated houses for 1.2 million rural families; and provide permanent housing for 60,000 nomadic families in 2010.

6) We will vigorously strengthen cultural development. We will increase efforts to build community public cultural facilities and sports facilities for the masses, with the focus on rural areas and the central and western regions. We will speed up implementation of cultural projects that benefit the people such as those to share cultural information and to build multipurpose cultural centers in towns and townships. We will do more to protect national natural and cultural heritage sites, famous historic and cultural cities, recovered cultural relics, and intangible cultural heritage. We will continue to promote reform of the cultural management system and improve policies to support non-profit cultural programs, develop cultural industries and encourage cultural innovations. We will promote the flourishing of philosophy and the social sciences. We will promote the development of major cultural projects and product innovation in radio, film and television, the press and publishing, and other areas. We will vigorously carry out public fitness programs. We plan to build 2,000 sports venues this year, an increase of 4.1%.

7) We will make programs for senior citizens a high priority, effectively protect the rights and interests of women and minors, show our concern for people with disabilities and support programs that benefit them. We plan to increase the number of social welfare beds by 100,000, up 3.3%; and raise the number of facilities providing comprehensive services for the disabled by 384, up 15.1% in 2010.

8) We will continue to carry out post-Wenchuan earthquake recovery and reconstruction work well, and basically complete the major tasks by the end of September this year.

We will continue to increase exchanges and cooperation between the mainland and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions in the areas of economic and trade affairs, science and technology, education, culture, health and sports, and we will continue to support the two regions in overcoming the adverse impact of the global financial crisis and promoting economic development. We will seize the historical opportunity to actively promote economic and cultural exchanges and cooperation between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, and expand the direct mail, transport and trade links between the two sides. We will support the role of the economic zone in Fujian Province on the west coast of the Straits in pioneering new approaches to exchanges and cooperation between the two sides.

This year we have an additional important task to perform: formulating the Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development. We will draw up the draft Outline of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan based on a wide range of opinions from all regions, departments, and all sectors of society; complete the preparatory work for submitting it to the Fourth Session of the Eleventh NPC for deliberation; and make arrangements for the formulation of related special plans and regional plans.