China will implement a series of policy measures to further safeguard and improve public well-being, and address the most pressing concerns of the people, said a senior official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press briefing in Beijing, Xiao Weiming, deputy secretary-general of the NDRC, China's top economic planner, elaborated on a set of guidelines on the matter jointly issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council on Monday.
The first comprehensive livelihood policy issued as a central government document since 2012, the groundbreaking guidelines outlined goals and practical measures to resolve issues of strong public concern, Xiao noted.
The guidelines proposed to launch programs to improve the capabilities and raise the earnings of low-income populations in rural areas through industrial development, transferring employment, skills training, and enhanced assistance.
The guidelines vowed to promote a basic medical insurance scheme that allows urban workers to use personal accounts for family members in different provincial-level regions.
The guidelines also support and encourage localities where conditions permit to disburse childbirth insurance proceeds and childbirth allowances directly to the insured.
Working in the same direction, various departments will take specific measures to implement the guidelines, Xiao said.
The National Health Commission will make child-care expenses for children under the age of three part of the special additional deductions for individual income tax to reduce the costs of raising children.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security will improve issuance polices to better suit new forms of employment and new features of income, focusing on such groups as people in flexible employment, migrant workers, people in new forms of employment, and college graduates.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs will enhance and expand the scope of social assistance policies such as subsistence allowances, and comprehensively carry out the identification of families on the edge of becoming eligible for subsistence allowances and families with rigid expenditure difficulties.
The Ministry of Education will build, renovate and expand more than 1,000 high-quality general high schools, and gradually achieve full coverage of standardized construction of compulsory education schools in around five years.
The Ministry of Finance has further increased its funding in areas concerning people's well-being this year, according to Xiao.
"We will give play to the coordinative role of general departments and have them assign duties in line with the key tasks set in the guidelines, which will be fulfilled on an annual basis. We will strengthen systematic research and assessment of major draft policies on people's well-being. We will actively introduce major supportive policies, and roll them out as soon as they are ready," Xiao said.
China mulls measures to address pressing livelihood concerns
