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March 6, 2010

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Vows to boost jobs, improve health care

PREMIER Wen Jiabao vowed yesterday to further improve the well-being of Chinese people with more efforts in boosting employment, accelerating reform of the pharmaceutical and health care systems, and providing good family planning services.

A total of 43.3 billion yuan (US$6.3 billion) will be spent to boost employment this year, Wen told the annual session of the National People's Congress.

"We will do everything in our power to increase employment," Wen said.

China plans to create over 9 million new jobs in urban areas and keep the urban registered unemployment rate no higher than 4.6 percent, Wen said.

The employment situation this year will "still be serious," he said, while calling for relentless efforts to tackle the problems.

College graduates and rural migrant workers will get the most attention, and the government will offer more policy support and employment guidance with strengthened vocational training and improved employment services system, he said.

China created 11 million new jobs in urban areas in 2009 amid the lingering financial crisis, while the country's urban unemployment rate stood at 4.3 percent, with 9.2 million people registered as unemployed.

The reform of health care systems will be another focus, the premier said.

The State Council passed a long awaited medical reform plan in January 2009 that promised to spend 850 billion yuan by 2011 to provide universal medical service to the country's 1.3 billion population.

Government subsidies on basic medical insurance for non-working urban residents and on a new type of rural cooperative medical care will rise to 120 yuan per person per year in 2010, up 50 percent over last year, Wen told the parliament.

"Only by ensuring and improving people's well-being can we achieve a sustained economic development, a solid foundation for social progress and lasting stability for the country," said Wen.

The Chinese government allocated 44 percent of its 924.3-billion-yuan public investment from the central budget to improve people's well-being last year.

The spending was mostly for low-income housing, projects to improve the well-being of rural residents and social programs, Wen said.

 

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