On October 16, 2007, Ren Yuling, advisor to the State Council and President of the China Central and Western Regions Development & Reform Institute, shared with China.org.cn his particular insights into problems concerning people's livelihoods. Below is a summary of Ren's talk:

General situation

In Party General Secretary Hu Jintao's keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 17th CPC National Congress, an entire chapter was devoted to problems concerning people's livelihoods, covering a wide range of topics like medical and health care system, education and employment.

In the panel discussions held later that day, delegates from all parts of the country actively offered advice on how to effectively improve people's living standards.

China has made much headway in overall social development over the past five years. In the meantime, we must be clearly aware that there are still quite many difficulties and problems facing our work. As the ruling party, the Communist Party must pay close attention to the problems and continue to work to solve them.

Housing

The crux of the housing problem lies in the skyrocketing housing prices.

Lately, the State Council issued a circular, regulating that houses of less than 90 square meters should make up at least 70 percent of a housing project, and not less than 70 percent of the provided land should go to low-rent houses, and economically affordable apartments with restricted prices.

Relevant authorities should work out a formula for local governments to calculate the proportion of an ordinary household's spending from its total revenue.

Another problem that needs to be tackled promptly is the 200 million migrant workers in China. They are treated unequally in cities and still live under bad conditions. Local governments should make more efforts to address their housing needs and provide them equal treatment like permanent city dwellers.

So far, many policies have been adopted to regulate the real estate market. The government should take more measures to ensure an effective implementation of the policies, thus addressing the most pressing needs of the people.

Education

Since the 16th CPC National Congress convened five years ago, the government has adopted many policies to promote education. So far, the tuition fee for compulsory education has been exempted in rural China. In the near future, officials expect the fee to be waived in urban areas. Furthermore, a policy was adopted recently to exempt the tuition fee for normal universities so as to cultivate more teachers.

However, problems still exist in the basic education system.

Education equality is a crucial issue to be addressed. The government should carefully study the situation and work out more policies in the favor of low-income families and poverty-stricken areas, thus to ensure all children in China have equal access to education.

Currently, the government tends to pay more attention to higher education and the energy they put on developing compulsory education becomes comparatively small. Fortunately, changes have taken place in this field and in the future, more measures should be taken to promote basic education.

Concerning financial allocation, more actions should be taken to ensure all money earmarked to education goes to where there is real need. Anyone who diverts educational funds to other purposes must be severely punished.

Medical and health care system

In his report to the 17th CPC National Congress, General Secretary Hu Jintao said China should maintain the public welfare nature of public medical and health care services. This means that the state will take over the responsibility of developing a public health care system.

Rural China is handicapped with insufficient health care institutions. Thus, more attention should be attached to developing a medical treatment system in the countryside in the next round of health care system restructuring.

In newly developed communities with dense populations, a basic health care system must be set up promptly so as to ensure all residents have easy access to a hospital.

Thousands of years of practice prove that traditional Chinese medicine is effective in curing diseases and traditional Chinese medicine is cheaper than western medicine. Therefore, equal importance should be given to both traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine.

To ensure the success of health care system restructuring, there are five points to be noticed: First, we must admit the failure of our previous health care system reform and learn from the experience. Second, measures should be taken to ensure all people have easy access to health care services. More money should be earmarked to hospitals in resident communities and villages. Third, measures should be taken to ensure all capital allocated for public health care improvement goes to places with real need. Fourth, hospital administrators should abandon their former wrong deeds of pursuing maximum profits and stick to earning revenue through rational methods. Fifth, changes must be made on the current chaotic situation in hospital management.

Employment

Employment has long been a major concern of the Chinese government. Many measures have been taken in recent years.

President Hu said in his report that efforts would be made in the next five years to encourage entrepreneurship to create more employment opportunities. This method will effectively relieve the currently heavy employment pressure in China.
 
In China, monopoly enterprises are all state-owned. Thus, all of their assets belong to the state and to the people. When the employment situation is getting worse, large state-owned enterprises are obliged to help the government to solve the problem and create more job opportunities for the laid-off and college graduates.

A better environment should be fostered in the favor of people who start businesses or find jobs on their own. For small-scale private businesses, registration with industrial and commercial administrative departments can be canceled. Banks should also offer loans in small quantities for people who launch their own businesses.

(China.org.cn by Chen Xia, October 18, 2007)