Hong Kong Economic Herald:

My question is about people's livelihood. For four consecutive years, Hebei has implemented 20 projects concerning people's livelihood, including the renovation of old residential communities, the reconstruction of urban villages, and the upgrading of city pipeline networks. The improvement efforts continue this year. What is the current progress of these projects? What are the focuses and features of this year's work in this regard? Thank you.

Wang Dongfeng:

Thank you. Mr. Xu will take your question.

Xu Qin:

Thank you. The centenary journey of the CPC is a history of its fight for a better life for the people. As General Secretary Xi Jinping put it, satisfying the people's desire for a better life will always be the country's goal. The CPC Hebei Provincial Committee and the People's Government of Hebei Province have resolutely implemented the General Secretary's important instructions, always taken a people-centered development approach, and kept carrying out projects that improve people's livelihood, so as to give people a stronger sense of gain, happiness, and security. From 2018 to 2020, Hebei has rebuilt 807,000 housing units in run-down urban areas, renovated 6,311 old residential communities, and launched projects to renovate 882 urban villages. We also renovated 6,863.2 kilometers of outdated city pipeline networks and built, renovated, and extended 2.06 million square meters of school buildings, 785 kindergartens, and 23,000 kilometers of rural roads. All of these have effectively improved people's living and working conditions.

In accordance with the deployment made by the CPC Central Committee, we have launched an activity themed "delivering practical services to the people" amid this year's Party history learning events. All levels of government in Hebei have launched a new round of projects concerning people's livelihood. Through four years of implementing such projects, we believe that the consistency of our work is of crucial importance to continuously improving people's working and living environment and addressing the most urgent issues that people care about most.

Just now you asked about the features of this year's projects that help improve people's livelihood. First, we strive to improve the living environment in both urban and rural areas. We are working to renovate housing units in both areas, strengthening sewage water and waste treatment. A total of 110,000 housing units in run-down urban areas will start renovation within this year, and 132,000 such housing units will complete renovation. We will also renovate 3,057 old residential communities and launch more projects to renovate urban villages. We will build domestic sewage treatment facilities covering 10,000 villages, renovating more than 1 million restrooms in rural households and improving their sanitation conditions. We will also work to carry out the safe treatment of waste across cities and counties in Hebei and further use it for power generation.

Second, we will boost our efforts to improve infrastructure in urban and rural areas, addressing issues such as car parking, transportation, upgrading of plumbing and wiring, drinking water and "hollow villages," which are also the wishes of the public. This year, over 200,000 new public parking spaces will be created, around 288 km of old pipes will be upgraded and 7,500 km of rural roads will be reconstructed. Meanwhile, we will accelerate construction of public water supply facilities in the intake areas of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, upgrade the abstraction of underground water, realize the full coverage of river water replacement in urban areas, complete river water replacement for 8.18 million residents in rural areas, and address the problem of "hollow villages," which have 30%-50% rural housing vacancy rates.  

Third, we will focus on raising the level of public services. We will set the target for this year in particular to meet the new demands from the public in the fields of education, healthcare, culture and sports. Our plan for projects to improve people's lives includes: further establishing community-level healthcare institutions and improving construction of the service network; and further increasing the number of negative pressure ambulances in township clinics, and as well as the mobile nucleic acid test vehicles in all the county-level areas. At the same time, we have launched a series of projects to enhance the education skills at kindergartens and public-interest pre-school education institutions, and to standardize, regulate and facilitate basic government services. More than 10,000 sports and fitness facilities will be constructed in communities and villages.

Fourth, we will improve social security. Arrangements have been made in employment, elderly care and assisting disadvantaged people, particularly in ensuring key groups such as university graduates can find jobs. Our target is that 860,000 new urban jobs will be created this year. We will conduct a variety of vocational training courses and launch a model for work-study integration so as to achieve our aim of helping 98% of graduates from technical colleges get jobs. Meanwhile, we will establish a multi-level social security system by adding about 15,000 beds in nursing homes and providing rehabilitation services for around 100,000 people with disabilities.

As of the end of May, these projects related to people's lives have progressed smoothly. Some are already more than half finished, while others are even 70%-80% complete. That's all from me. Thank you.

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