Resident Livelihood

Guangzhou resident’s income grew steadily in 2016. The city further narrowed the income gap between urban and rural residents, continuously boosting resident consumption as well as improving both the quality and efficiency of the projects concerning people’s livelihood. The per-capita disposable income of urban permanent residents reached 50,941 yuan in 2016, up 9.0%; the per-capita disposable income of rural permanent residents reached 21,449 yuan, up 11.0%, which means the income of rural residents continued to grow faster than that of urban residents. Meanwhile, the per-capita consumption of urban permanent residents reached 38,398 yuan, up 7.4% while the per-capita consumption of rural permanent residents reached 17, 595 yuan, up 10.5% at the same time.

Social Security

The city raised the urban and rural minimum living allowance substantially in 2016, reaching 840 yuan per person per month; established and consummated the medical assistace system, covering all residents including migrant workers, with the maximum medical assistance standard reaching 350,000 yuan per person per year. The city also invested 138 million yuan in the basic endowment insurance for 31,687 handicapped persons, thus becoming the first city in the nation to include all local handicapped persons into the basic endowment insurance system. The urban and rural resident basic pension grew from 180 yuan to 191 yuan per person per month and the designated chronic diseases covered by the basic medical insurance for urban workers also increased from 16 to 20 in the meantime.

Social Welfare

Advocating elderly care service creatively. In 2016, there were 59,000 beds used for elderly care in the city, guaranteeing 40 beds for per thousand elderly people, thus reaching the target set by the central government five years in advance.

Raising benefits for children steadily. The authorities established the basic allowance system for children who are in fact not raised by anyone and promulgated the trial measures to take care of orphans who have grown up. The basic allowance for orphans was 2,000 yuan per person per month, which was on the top ranks of Guangdong Province.

Grassroots Governance

Guangzhou carried forward the grid-like service and management system of urban communities in a smooth order, optimizing and adjusting the number of basic units to 16,658, thus realizing the total coverage of all local communities. The authorities also arranged “One Special Staff for Each Basic Unit”, and the grid-like service and management system of urban communities is taking into its primary shape in the city.

The city boasted 188 integrated family service centers and 15 special service programs, serving residents for nearly 2.9 million person times in 2016. The city’s social worker development model, featuring “Government Guidance, Social Coordination, Project Operation and Professional Service ” had also been summerized and promoted in the nation.

Housing Security

In 2016, Guangzhou laid the cornerstone and raised the fund for the construction of 25,830 sets of new indemnificatory housing; basically completed the construction of 7,800 sets and handed out house-leasing subsidies to 1,693 new households. The city supplied 10,406 sets of public rental housing (including 600 sets for migrant workers for the first time in Guangzhou), and the housing security system covered poor residents with the family income below the average level, migrant workers who have met the relevant requirements and newly-employed workers who have no houses.

Intellectual Property Right. In 2016, the growth rate of the number of the city’s patent application and the actual number of invention patent application were both ranked as No.1 of all Chinese sub-provincial cities and above. Local patent applications totaled 99,112 in the same year, including 31,892 for invention patents, namely 22.4 invention patents per ten thousand people, over-fulfilling the task specified in the Outline of the Plan for the Reform and Development of the Pearl River Delta.

In the same year, local intellectual property right service organizations finished the patent transaction of 2.43 billion yuan, involving 32,198 patents. The city investigated and cracked 1,616 cases on patent infringement and counterfeited patents, including 384 cases on patent infringement. None of the cases on administrative law enforcement, administrative litigation and administrative review had been lost throughout the year.

File Management. The city’s archives on all levels housed a total of 17, 814,400 scrolls of files, up 5% year on year. In the same year, the file of the city’s archives were consulted and utilized for 2,074,400 person-times and 3,202,400 scroll-times. The comprehensive archives on the municipal and district levels received 2,414 “Disclosure of Government Information” documents, serving citizens for 7,550 person-times for consultation of the existing documents.

Urban Employment

The city’s urban areas created 312,500 new jobs and helped 168,200 laid-off workers and 109,700 workers with employment problems to land on new jobs, both over-fulfilling the annual task. Meanwhile, the urban registered unemployment rate stood at 2.41%, below the annual target of 3.5% to control unemployment rates.