Report on the Work of the Government

6. Ensuring and improving the people's wellbeing

Putting people first is about realizing, upholding, and promoting their fundamental interests. We will make ensuring and improving their wellbeing an important task in the work of the government.

We will make every effort to increase employment. Employment is of great importance to China's development and the people's wellbeing. We will continue to face great employment pressure this year, and governments at all levels must continue to follow the strategy of giving top priority to employment and more actively implement employment policies. We will give high priority to supporting service industries, innovative high-tech enterprises, and small and micro businesses that employ large numbers of people so as to create more jobs. We will encourage the creation of new businesses to stimulate employment. We will help college graduates, rural migrant workers and urban residents having difficulty finding jobs find employment, and strengthen technical training for ex-soldiers and help them find jobs and settle down. We will encourage college graduates to pursue careers in rural areas, local communities and the central and western regions. We will strengthen vocational training and public employment services. We will accelerate development of a sound, unified, standardized, and flexible human resources market. We will promote harmonious labor relations, increase supervision of labor dispatch, settle labor relations disputes, and intensify supervision, mediation, and arbitration of labor disputes to protect the legitimate rights and interests of employees.

We will accelerate improvements to the social security system. By the end of the year, we will have achieved full coverage of the new old-age pension system for rural residents and the old-age pension system for non-working urban residents. We will expand coverage of all types of social insurance. We will raise the basic pension for enterprise retirees. We will increase urban and rural subsistence allowances and social aid, and accelerate development of social welfare programs and charities. We will better coordinate all aspects of the social safety net. We will increase the social security fund through a variety of channels, and strengthen oversight and supervision of investment from the social insurance fund and social security fund to increase their value. We will strengthen capacity building for social security services, allow localities where conditions permit to integrate and merge social security agencies, and entrust some services to banks or commercial insurance institutions. We will accelerate the work of introducing all-in-one national social security cards.

We will vigorously promote the development and reform of medical and healthcare services. We will move faster to improve the medical insurance system covering the whole population, consolidate and expand the coverage of basic medical insurance, and enhance our capability to provide and manage basic medical services. We will raise subsidies for medical insurance for non-working urban residents and the new type of rural cooperative medical care system to 240 yuan per person per year. We will fully introduce social insurance against uraemia and seven other major diseases and include lung cancer and 11 other major diseases in the pilot program to provide insurance and aid for their treatment. We will consolidate and improve the system for basic drugs and improve the community-level medical and health care system. We will push forward reform of public hospitals, so that medical care is separated from pharmacy operations, government management is separated from hospital operations, and the practice of using pharmacy profits to subsidize medical services is ended. We will encourage and guide nongovernmental investment in hospitals, and speed up the creation of a system of hospitals with diversified ownership that is open to foreign participation. We will boost the morale of medical workers and build harmonious relations between doctors and patients. We will improve public health services and prevent and control major communicable, chronic and occupational diseases that pose a major health hazard. We will tighten control over drug safety. We will support and promote the development of traditional Chinese medicine and the medical practices of ethnic minorities.

We will comprehensively carry out work relating to population and family planning. We will continue to keep the birthrate low, redress gender imbalance through various means, and improve the health of infants. We will achieve full coverage of quality family planning services more quickly than planned and extend the trial program of free pre-pregnancy checkups to 60% of China's counties and county-level cities and districts. We will increase the rewards and special assistance to the rural families that observe the state's family planning policy. We will increase family planning services to the floating population and improve management of such services. We will do our work related to women and children well. We will extend free cervical cancer and breast cancer screening to more rural women, improve the wellbeing of women and children and better guarantee their rights and interests. We will further improve the social security system and the system of services for people with disabilities. We will actively develop programs for the elderly and accelerate development of a system of social services for urban and rural seniors so they can live their later years in contentment.

We will continue to regulate the real estate market and develop low-income housing. We will strictly implement and gradually improve policies and measures for discouraging speculative or investment-driven housing demand, build on progress made in regulating the real estate market, and bring property prices down to a reasonable level. We will continue to develop low-income housing, and basically complete five million units and start construction on over seven million units, ensuring they are built to a high standard. We will work speedily to improve the system for constructing, allocating, managing, and recalling low-income housing units. We will take effective measures to increase supply of regular commodity housing. We will accelerate development of an urban housing information system and reform the real estate tax system to promote long-term, steady, and sound growth of the real estate market.

We will strengthen and make innovations in social administration. We will work hard to resolve social conflicts, make innovations in social administration, and enforce the law impartially and with integrity. We will strengthen government functions for conducting social administration and providing public services. We will strengthen the self-governing capabilities of rural and urban community self-governing organizations. We will get social organizations to play an active role in social administration. We will actively yet prudently carry forward the reform of the household registration system, implement the residence permit system, and provide better services to the floating population. We will accelerate the development of a national e-government network, with the focus on sharing information and achieving national interconnectivity. We will vigorously give impetus to government, business, and public integrity, and create a credit information system for the whole society. We will strengthen and improve management of the Internet and foster a healthy cyberspace environment. We will improve the mechanism for assessing risks major policy decisions may pose for social stability and the mechanism for managing responses to emergencies. We will implement the strategy of ensuring safety in development, tighten oversight over workplace safety, and prevent the occurrence of serious and major accidents. We will carry out an intense crackdown on violations of intellectual property rights and the manufacture and sale of counterfeit or substandard goods. We will enhance our food safety oversight capability and raise the level of food safety. We will strengthen and improve the handling of public complaints made through letters and visits and improve the mechanism whereby the masses express appeals concerning matters affecting their interests. We will strengthen legal services and assistance. We will be on high alert for and crack down on crime in accordance with the law to protect people's lives and property.