China vows to offer tax benefits for hiring employees with disabilities

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Chinese authorities vow to offer tax benefits to employers who have a specific number of disabled employees in a bid to help the disabled find jobs.

The China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF) on Sunday announced the launching of a project to promote employment of the disabled in the country's cities and townships. The project aims to offer one million more jobs to the disabled in the next five years.

May 15 is the 21st national day for helping the disabled.

According to a previous regulation issued by the State Council, or China's Cabinet, businesses qualifying for such tax benefits should offer at least 25 percent of their full-time jobs to the disabled.

The CDPF will also offer assistances to disabled people to help them start and run their own businesses, the CDPF said in a statement Sunday.

Over the past five years, work to help disabled people in China has been promoted with the livelihood, development environment, social security programs and social services for the disabled being greatly improved, the statement said.

Further, during the past five years 10.37 million handicapped citizens received rehabilitation services, more than 1.79 million disabled were employed and over 35,000 students with disabilities were enrolled in colleges or universities, the statement said.

According to the statement, China currently has more than 15,000 rehabilitation institutions, over 1,700 special education schools and more than 4,700 occupational schools for the disabled.

Also on Sunday, China's Vice Premier, Hui Liangyu, has urged employing the disabled, saying that employment is a basic right of disabled people.

Hui further called on all governmental departments and society to take efforts to help people with disabilities to find jobs and improve their livelihoods.

Hui visited a company which has hired deaf workers in Beijing. He inspected the company's work and living facilities for disabled workers and chatted with workers with the help of sign language interpretation.