Ninety-eight Percent Pensioners Receive Payment on Time: MinisterMore than 98 percent of pensioners in China had received their monthly payment on time by the end of June, according to Minister of Labor and Social Security Zhang Zuoji.Zhang said that during the 18 months prior to June, more than 17 billion yuan worth of defaulted pension payments had been paid in addition to 400 billion yuan worth of due payments. He made the remarks at the China Development Forum on Social Security Reform sponsored by the Development Research Center under the State Council of China Sunday. According to a government decree issued last month, all localities around the country are required to pay every cent of defaulted pensions and allowance to ensure the basic living of laid off workers by the end of this month. In a bid to avoid recurrence of default of pension payment, the country has started to switch pension distribution from enterprises to banks and post offices. According to Zhang, more than 18 million people are now receiving pension payments through banks and post offices. By the end of the year, all pensioners will obtain their payment from banks and post offices. The number of people buying basic retirement insurance had grown from 112 million to 129 million. The number of people purchasing unemployment insurance also grew from 80 million to 100 million while those who received monthly unemployment payment grew from 700,000 to 1,280,000. China has more than 6.7 million laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises. So far 90 percent of them have secured basic living with the help of the government. Zhang noted that China has helped more than 12 million laid off workers have found new jobs in the past two years. According to Zhang, the central and local governments of China have increased social security budget expenditure. For example, the central treasury allocated over ten billion yuan to social security schemes in 1998. The figure grew to 20 billion yuan last year. |
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