-- Social security and employment
We will increase basic pension payments for retirees as appropriate and establish a mechanism for making reasonable adjustments to basic pensions. We will take steady steps to reform the basic old-age insurance system and expand its coverage. On the basis of progress in all related reform work, we will establish a central regulation system for basic old-age insurance funds. We will also formulate a plan for the transfer of a portion of state capital into social security funds. We will strengthen management over basic pension fund revenue and expenditures, and take effective measures to guard against payment risks.
We will step up the coordination of resources for social assistance and carefully determine the most appropriate subsistence allowances for Chinese citizens. We will improve our policies for providing assistance to people living in extreme poverty. We will strengthen work to secure the welfare of children living in difficult circumstances and ensure care and protection for children remaining in rural areas while their parents work away. We will strengthen financial support for programs that benefit people with disabilities.
We will adjust subsidies and living allowances for entitled groups at an appropriate time. Well-regulated trials will be carried out to establish long-term care insurance schemes. We will implement more proactive employment policies, improving our policies and measures for promoting employment and startups and doing more to help key groups find employment. We will conduct research on developing a system for life-long vocational skills training.
-- Health care
We will improve the mechanisms to ensure stable and sustainable funding for basic medical insurance and to adjust reimbursement rates for medical expenses, uphold the principle that benefit levels must be appropriate, and give particular weight to protection against major diseases. We will increase both annual government subsidies and personal contributions for basic health insurance for rural and non-working urban residents by 30 yuan, bringing the total up to 180 and 450 yuan a year per person, respectively. We will bring basic medical insurance funds under budgetary management and roll out reforms nationwide to the way medical payouts are made, using predominantly payouts according to the type of illness plus multiple other methods, and work to curb any unreasonable growth in medical costs. We will help carry out comprehensive reforms in public hospitals nationwide and improve the operating systems of community-level medical and healthcare institutions. We will raise the basic annual per capita government subsidies for public health services from 45 to 50 yuan.We will support the law-based development of traditional Chinese medicine. Having adopted the policy of allowing all couples to have two children, we will strengthen our maternity medical and healthcare services.
-- Poverty alleviation
The central government will allocate 86.1 billion yuan to subsidize local poverty reduction, an increase of 20 billion yuan, or 30.3 percent over last year. The funds will be used to support implementation of the fundamental strategy of targeted poverty reduction. We will coordinate the use of funds allocated to fields including agriculture, education, social security, and health care that are earmarked for poverty alleviation; further boost investment in the fight against poverty; and ensure that government investment plays a principal and guiding role in poverty reduction through development. We will speed up work to improve the infrastructure and basic public services in poor areas and step up support for reducing poverty by developing local industries, promoting education, and improving health standards. The integration of different rural development funds will be piloted in poor counties throughout the country. We will carry out inspections on the use of funds for poverty reduction.
-- Agriculture, forestry, and water conservation
We will implement the reform plan for building an agricultural subsidy system geared toward ecological conservation, improve our system for subsidizing agriculture, ensure subsidy policies are more precise and better targeted, and boost the development of new industries and new forms of business in agriculture.
We will take constructive, steady steps to reform the pricing mechanism and the purchase and storage systems for grain and other important agricultural products; and we will continue and improve the minimum purchase price policy for rice and wheat, making reasonable adjustments to these prices, to enable reasonable parity between prices. We will make sure the reform of the corn purchase and storage system is carried out effectively, and will improve the system for subsidizing corn production. We will work to reduce excess stockpiles of policy-supported grain and cotton. We will adjust and improve the guaranteed base price policy for cotton and improve the way in which the subsidy for cotton production is granted. We will also adjust the guaranteed base price policy for soybeans. We will improve the mechanism for subsidizing major grain-producing areas and work to better utilize risk funds for grain.
We will increase food crop production based on farmland management and the application of technology, develop high-efficiency water-saving irrigation, and significantly scale up the development of high-grade farmland and land improvement. We will continue support for trials to restore cultivated land contaminated by heavy metals and adjust the production mix of agricultural products, and will expand the coverage of work to deal comprehensively with the over-abstraction of groundwater in north China.
We will step up support for post-disaster water conservancy construction in areas in need of attention. We will move forward with adjusting the production mix of food, cash, and fodder crops, and facilitate the development of appropriately scaled-up agricultural operations. We will move faster to make progress in the development and operation of an agricultural credit guaranty system at and below the provincial level. We will support forest protection, management, and cultivation, and step up support for afforestation and forest improvement efforts.We will improve the dynamic mechanism for adjusting compensation for forest management and conservation efforts that produce a positive ecological impact. We will support wetland protection and restoration efforts to encourage the resumption of wetland growth. We will deepen comprehensive reform in rural areas, move ahead with reforms in state farms, farms on reclaimed land, state forestry farms, forestry areas, and rural supply and marketing cooperatives, and develop and strengthen collective village enterprises.
-- Ecological conservation and environmental protection
We will ensure the support is there for fighting the battle against air, water, and soil pollution. We will provide government awards or subsidies to key regions for efforts to prevent and control air pollution caused by the use of coal or other factors. We will support the prevention and control of water pollution in key water basins and conduct surveys on soil pollution in order to strengthen the prevention and control of water and soil pollution. We will increase transfer payments for key ecological zones. We will act when appropriate to launch the second set of trial projects under the initiative to protect and restore mountain, water, forest and farmland ecosystems. We will fully implement a new round of subsidy and reward policies for grassland ecological conservation, support the new round of initiatives to turn marginal farmland into forest or grassland, expand the coverage of these initiatives, and realize coverage of protective policies for all natural forests. We will move forward with royalty reform for mineral resources and the establishment of a mechanism of intra-river basin compensation for ecological conservation. We will drive the expansion of pilot projects for developing a cap-and-trade system for emissions. We will support trials for the national park system.
We will continue to provide new-energy vehicle subsidies while raising the technological threshold for them and improving the way they are provided. We will ensure thorough implementation of the initiative to demonstrate the integration of fiscal policies for energy conservation and emission reductions. We will support the exploitation and utilization of clean energy resources such as coal seam gas, shale gas, and hydropower in rural areas, as well as the move to improve the quality of refined oil products. We will adjust the mechanism for subsidizing the use of renewable energy for electricity generation. We will also promote the development of a circular economy and clean production. We will give further support for comprehensive measures to address prominent environmental problems in rural areas.