Relief measures provide timely help to the needy (China Daily) Updated: 2006-01-20 06:20
As the biggest holiday among Chinese, the Spring Festival, is coming,
governments at all level are stepping up their efforts to aid people in poor and
remote areas of the country to ensure everybody will have a happy holiday.
Efforts in coastal regions
The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and five provinces in southern and
eastern parts of China have recently begun offering fuel subsidies to
poverty-stricken residents amid price hikes in liquefied natural gas (LNG).
On Monday, Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province, decided to grant 20
yuan (US$2.5) per month as temporary fuel subsidies to low-income families
before the Spring Festival, which falls on January 29 this year.
Guangxi, Hainan, Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi previously offered similar
subsidies ranging from 10 to 20 yuan (US$1.25-2.5) a month to poor residents.
"The move aims to ease the pressure from continuous price hikes for liquefied
natural gas on low-income residents," said Lin Yuanlin, a social security
official with the local civil affairs bureau in Nanning, capital city of the
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Among those to benefit is Wei Rilong, a laid-off worker in Changgangling of
Nanning.
In his kitchen are coal briquettes piled up in a small wooden box; beside the
box is an empty LNG tank covered with dust.
Wei said: "With the fuel subsidy, we can afford a tank of LNG for the coming
week-long holiday.
"At the end of last year when LNG price exceeded 100 yuan (US$12.3) per
15-kilogram tank, I dared not buy gas any longer and so turned to coal."
Since last August, most parts of southern China have experienced a
substantial price rise for LNG. The hike was more than 40 per cent in Hainan,
Guangxi and Guangdong. And in Hainan's Sanya, LNG cost as high as 120 yuan
(US$14.8) per 15-kilogram tank, the highest across the nation.
Currently, China depends on imports to meet more than one-third of the
domestic demand for LNG, a by-product of oil refining. "Imported natural gas is
priced high and it is difficult for the gas produced in northern China to be
transported to southern regions. That's the reason for LNG price hikes," Mo
Xiong, general manager of Nanning Sanran Fuel Gas Co Ltd, said.
"LNG imported by Guangdong is now priced at 7,000 yuan (US$863) per ton. It
means the wholesale price of LNG per tank has reached 101 yuan (US$12.4)."
The National Development and Reform Commission on Tuesday issued a circular
on intensifying management over LNG pricing by local market regulators and
petrochemical enterprises.
Professor Qian Zongfan, a social scientist from Guangxi, considered that the
fuel subsidy extension signified diversified regulation by government.
PetroChina and Sinopec, China's two leading onshore oil producers, said they
will operate their LNG facilities on full power to meet the great demand at
home.
Steps in the north
In another development, as of Tuesday, the government of North China's Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region has allocated about 180 million yuan (US$23 million)
and a huge amount of materials to help people whose lives were affected by
natural disasters to manage through the winter.
Inner Mongolia was hit by droughts, hails, floods and severe frosts in 2005,
which affected 7.5 million people.
The disasters severely damaged or destroyed 25,900 houses and killed 560,000
livestock in the autonomous region, bringing about a direct economic loss of 7.8
billion yuan (US$975 million).
An official with the regional department of civil affairs said the local
government showed great concerns over the welfare of the disaster-affected
population and attached great importance to the reconstruction of the damaged
areas and relocation of residents.
The official said the region has already spent 184.73 million yuan (US$23
million) in disaster relief and sent 27,161 tons of coal to the relocated
population for heating use.
More than 100,000 pieces of clothing and 5 million yuan (US$625,000), donated
from various parts of the country, have already been handed out to people in the
area.
Assistance from the PLA
Soldiers and armed police are actively joining the campaign of aiding poor
people in rural areas, after finishing their duty and drills.
Over the past year, armies helped deprived areas in western parts of the
country build nearly 30,000 water-saving projects for agriculture, and 900 roads
among villages, according to the General Political Department of the People's
Liberation Army (PLA).
In Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province, and Lanzhou,
capital of Northwest China's Gansu Province, armies funded local educational
departments to build 170 primary schools, and 15,000 children, who dropped out
of school due to poverty, have returned to their classrooms.
Army-based universities and research institutes in western areas have also
helped 200,000 farmers learn latest farming skills.
In the Tibet Autonomous Region, more than 3,000 residents have mastered the
skills of planting, breeding and repairing farm machinery, thanks to the help of
regional scientific service agencies.
Last year, the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army
mobilized 100 army-based hospitals to give medical assistance to 105 hospitals
in poverty-stricken counties.
(China Daily 01/20/2006 page5)
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