CHINA> Key Reports
Report on China's economic, social development plan [Full Text]
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-21 11:23

8. We will improve people's lives and promote social harmony.

1) We will continue to follow a vigorous employment policy. We will conscientiously implement the Employment Promotion Law and the Law on Labor Contracts and work out supporting measures. We will set up a sound employment service system that covers both urban and rural areas, provide better employment service for college graduates and demobilized soldiers, and put greater effort into helping people in zero-employment households and people who have difficulty finding employment find jobs. We will strengthen vocational training to produce more highly skilled personnel. We will improve the service system for business start-ups and provide a better environment for the establishment and growth of small and medium-sized enterprises. We will aggressively combat all types of illegal hiring practices in accordance with the law.

2) We will accelerate improvement of the social safety net. We will expand the basic old-age insurance system to cover more urban workers, expand the trials to fully fund personal retirement accounts for enterprise employees and raise the level of unified management. We will explore ways to reform the system of basic old-age insurance for public service institutions. We will work out a set of unified national rules for transferring social security accounts from one region to another as well as measures for providing old-age insurance suitable for rural migrant workers. We will encourage local governments to carry out trials of old-age insurance system in rural areas. We will speed up establishment of a system for assisting both urban and rural residents in meeting expenses for medical care, expand the basic medical insurance system to cover more urban workers and extend trials of a basic medical insurance scheme aimed at non-working urban residents to 50% or more of the country's cities at the prefecture level. We will fully implement the new type of rural cooperative medical care system and within two years, increase the standard for financing its operation from 50 yuan to 100 yuan per person per annum, with central and local government contributions to be raised from 40 yuan 80 yuan per person. We will continue to experiment with expanding the scope of expenditures drawn from unemployment insurance funds in the eastern region. We will improve the basic cost of living allowance system for urban and rural residents by instituting dynamic management of the system and organizing beneficiaries by type in cities and including all eligible poor rural residents in the system. We will increase public assistance efforts and encourage the development of charity programs.