Quickening Establishment of a Unified, Standard and Perfect Social Security System

The Party Central Committee has recently stressed the need to speed up the establishment of a national unified, standard and perfect social security system and has set explicit requirement on how to set up this system, this move is of extremely important significance for further doing the "two guarantees" (guaranteeing the basic living standards of laid-off workers, guaranteeing the payment of pension on time and in full to retirees) work well, raising the social security level, deepening the reform, maintaining social stability and realizing the sustainable development of the national economy.

In his recent "three-representing" expositions (representing China's advanced productive forces, China's advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the broadest section of the Chinese people), General Secretary Jiang Zemin emphasized that Our Party must always become the faithful representative of the fundamental interests of the broadest section of the people. What involved in the establishment of a perfect social security system are precisely the basic rights and interests and the basic living standards of the broadest section of the people. It concerns whether they can feel at rest in their daily lives, whether they can live and work in peace, whether the elderly are provided for and the patients are given medical treatment, and it affects the stability of hundreds of million of families and the whole society. To carry out this idea, it is imperative to quicken the establishment of a social security system.

Since the "two-guarantees" requirement was put forward by the Party Central Committee in 1998, it has received high attention from governments and departments concerned at all levels who have taken a series of measures and have achieved remarkable results in this regard. At present, the basic livelihood of most workers laid off from State-owned enterprises is guaranteed and pensions are paid on time and in full to retirees of most enterprises. The "two guarantees" work has played an important role in successfully spurring the reform of State-owned enterprises, promoting economic development and preserving social stability, and it has laid a sound foundation for setting up a perfect social security system as soon as possible in China. However, we should take note of the shortcomings. There exist dead angles related to the "two guarantees" work and difficulties in the reform of the social security system have further increased. Most of the work to be unfolded in the days ahead will touch the deep-seated contradictions related to the reform, which are hard nuts to crack. In accordance with the plan of the Party Central Committee, a perfect social security system is a social security system independent of enterprises and institutions. The security level should be compatible with the level of China's economic development and its bearing capability, the basic system should be standardized, the funding channels should be diversified, management services should be socialized and the technological means should be modernized. To truly establish a set of standard systems, we still need to overcome many difficulties, this also set higher demands on our work.

In the last year of the three-year program for bringing State-owned enterprises out of difficulties, this year will witness further added effort for enterprise bankruptcy, closure, merger and reorganization, the effort for the readjustment of the labor structure will also be increased accordingly. In this period when the industrial structure is undergoing drastic readjustment, whether a perfect social security system can be set up as quickly as possible has a direct bearing on whether the policy for lifting SOEs out of difficulties can be implemented successfully and whether readjustment of the industrial structure can be carried out smoothly. Meanwhile, establishment of this system is an important base and one of the prerequisites for promoting domestic consumption and boosting economic growth. Only by setting up a perfect social security system is it possible to relieve laborers of the worries behind and spend more money on period consumption.

The key to a perfect social security system lies in a stable, reliable fund-collection mechanism. At present, the progress of the reform of the social security system is slow in some localities, an important reason for this is the shortage of funds. To solve the funding problem, in the past few years, the Party Central Committee has demanded that the government, enterprise and society jointly undertake the responsibility, and has adopted a series of measures to intensify the collection of funds, which has played a significant role in the collection of social security funds. In the future when we continue to implement these policies, we should broaden our train of thought, actively open up new fund-raising channels, change passive worries about the shortage of funds into active thinking of ways to strive for funds and intensify efforts for the collection of funds, for example, cashing part of the State-owned assets, issuing long-term social security bonds and other feasible methods. Along with the broadening and implementation of new fund-raising channels, China's social security level will rise steadily.

Setting up a perfect social security system is a major program of lasting importance for administrating State affairs well and ensuring national security, as well as the construction of a fundamental system for the socialist cause. We should further update our concepts and clearly understand that a perfect social security system concerns the fundamental interests of the broadest section of the people, it is where the important responsibility of the government lies, it can only be done well and admits of not the least carelessness. Governments at all levels should continue to steadfastly place this work in a prominent position, make careful arrangements, work out detailed plans, truly regard it as the top priority work in both thinking and action, energetically consolidate the "two guarantees" achievements, expedite the pace of construction of the social security system and construct a safe social security network whereby people can feel at ease and rest assured.



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