Accessible funeral services to cover all low-income groups

BEIJING, March 1 (Xinhua) -- China is to make the funeral services more accessible for all of the country's low-income groups by the end of 2012, Vice Minister of Civil Affairs Dou Yupei said on Thursday.

The Chinese government has launched a policy to provide free funeral services or favorable conditions in terms of service fees for decedents and their family members from the country's low-income groups.

To date, the policy has been carried out in the country's 14 province-level regions including Beijing and Tianjin, and the annual fiscal funds invested in this program is about 1.44 billion yuan (228.7 million U.S. dollars).