China's Traditional Industrial Base to Expand Social Security SystemLiaoning Province, home to one-tenth of China's large State-owned enterprises, has covered the most people with a minimum standard of living system which has been introduced for urban residents across the country.People who have been given a minimum living standard increased to 451,500 from last year's 267,000, making 2.34 percent of all non-rural residents in the province. "The sharp increase was not because more urban residents in the province are becoming poverty-stricken," said Zhang Guoguang, governor of this province in northeast China. "It is a result of a pilot reform of the social security system which aims to further improve the function of the minimum standard of living system for city residents." Liaoning, a traditional industrial base in China, has reported sound economic growth in the first half of this year with a GDP growth rate of 9.5 percent, the most rapid one over the past five years. "The economic performance has also laid a preferential foundation for expanding the social security system," said Zhang. China has long been practicing a poverty relief system until the minimum living standard was gradually adopted by some cities in mid-1990s. Liaoning Province took the lead to launch the new system in 1995. However, the system was far from being perfect partly due to the financial difficulties. Quite a lot of people were unable to enjoy the system's benefits. The Chinese central government decided to reform the social security system on a trial basis in Liaoning next year. An important step will be to make the minimum living standard accessible to all urban residents in strained circumstances. During a survey on the living standards of urban residents across the province from May 15 to June 25, about 5.4 million urban households, or 82 percent of all in the province, were visited by 36,000 census workers. The provincial government worked out new measures to implement the minimum living standard system based on the latest survey result. One of the changes made is no longer converting labor capability into income. The income of urban residents was calculated as it is in real life. Statistics showed that the province has paid 193 million yuan (US$23.3 million) to support the minimum living standard of its people during the first nine months of this year, surpassing the total amount of last year. Governor Zhang Guoguang promised to gradually make all urban residents whose living standard was below the minimum level benefit from the welfare system. About 700,000 people in the province are expected to become beneficiaries of the system by the end of this year, and this will become a huge challenge for the traditional industrial base where State-owned enterprises have been sluggish over the past years. However, official sources said that the central government would provide financial aid to support Liaoning's ambitious reform. The reform will first benefit workers who have become jobless because of bankruptcy, and then people without unemployment insurance, and last the rest of all people qualified for a relief. Subdistrict offices and communities in the province are taking the responsibility to receive applications for minimum living standard aid from local people. The subdistrict offices will transfer their duty of distributing relief to banks. |
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