Full text: Report on China's central, local budgets (9)
Xinhua, March 17, 2015 Adjust font size:
Medical and health care
We will increase investment in public health services and comprehensive public hospital reform. We will raise annual per capita spending on basic public health services from 35 yuan to 40 yuan, with the entire additional funds in rural areas to be used for purchasing basic public health services from rural doctors. We will increase support for the prevention and control of major diseases. The comprehensive reform of county-level public hospitals will be extended to all counties, and the central government will continue to provide a subsidy of three million yuan per county. The reform of public hospitals in urban areas will be extended to more cities. Efforts will be continued to provide standardized training for resident physicians, with annual subsidies of 30,000 yuan per person from the central government.
We will improve the basic medical insurance system for urban and rural residents, raise government subsidies for the new rural cooperative medical care system and basic medical insurance for nonworking urban residents from 320 yuan to 380 yuan per person per annum, and make a corresponding increase to the annual individual contribution, which will go up from 90 to 120 yuan per person. The major disease insurance scheme for rural and non-working urban residents will be introduced nationwide, with an appropriate increase in the required contributions.
Agriculture
We will increase support for implementing the strategy on developing sustainable, ecologically friendly agriculture. The trials for restoring and improving cultivated land contaminated by heavy metals and trials for dealing comprehensively with the over-abstraction of groundwater will both be expanded. We will support efforts to improve the subsoil of cropland, develop eco-friendly tilling, and return plant stalks to fields in order to restore and improve the productivity of the land. We will give greater support to major grain-, edible oil-, and seed-producing counties, and improve the mechanisms for subsidizing major grain-growing areas. We will strengthen the building of farmland irrigation and water conservancy infrastructure and supporting end-use facilities for major water conservancy projects. We will increase investment in comprehensive agricultural development, and work hard to build high-grade farmland.
We will improve the policies on agricultural subsidies, intensify efforts to combine funds for this purpose, and use subsidies in a more precise, targeted, and effective way. We will improve the methods for carrying out reforms to ensure guaranteed base prices for cotton and soybeans. Great effort will be channeled into offering support to larger-scale operations, making thoroughgoing innovations in farmer cooperatives, intensifying institutional innovation in the trials to provide commercial services for the whole process of agricultural production, and integrating the development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in rural areas. Policies on rural finance and agricultural insurance will be improved to guide more private capital to invest in the development of modern agriculture.
We will improve the government award and subsidy mechanism for village-level public works launched on the basis of deliberation by villagers, and continue developing pilot projects for building beautiful rural areas and trials to exemplify towns designated by provincial-level governments. We will work proactively to advance demonstrations and trials for comprehensive rural reform and the pilot reform to relieve state-owned farms of social service responsibilities, and we will search for effective ways to develop the rural collective economy. We will support steady steps forward in the trials for determining, registering, and certifying contracted rural land-use rights, with subsidies of 150 yuan per hectare from the central government for China's cultivated land area of 121 million hectares. These subsidies will be granted on a yearly basis according to the actual progress of the work. We will support poverty alleviation and development in major contiguous poor areas, and carry out carefully targeted measures to ensure that the funding for poverty alleviation actually reaches the people who need it.
Ecological conservation and environmental protection
We will go further in encouraging efforts to protect virgin forests, establishing an award and subsidy mechanism for halting logging in areas of natural forest not yet covered by the protective policy, and increasing existing subsidies for those areas of natural forest that already fall under the policy. A further 666,667 hectares of marginal farmland will be returned to forest or grassland. We will go further in improving the financial compensation system for forest conservation and forestry that produces positive ecological impact and the policy on subsidies and awards for the ecological conservation of grassland. We will increase investment in controlling air pollution. We will integrate financial resources to establish funds for the prevention and control of water pollution to help strengthen efforts in this regard, and carry out pilot projects to comprehensively improve the conditions of rivers by covering each river's entire drainage basin. We will establish mechanisms to cover every aspect of efforts to promote the use of new-energy vehicles. We will adjust and improve the uses of existing funds for supporting the closure of outdated production facilities to tackle overcapacity. We will extend to more areas the comprehensive demonstrations for energy conservation and emission reduction based on integrating financial policies, and grant a full package of incentives to eligible provinces. We will deepen reform of the cap-and-trade system for pollution discharge, and expand trials of having provinces situated on the upper and lower reaches of river basins compensate each other for their impact on water quality.
Government-subsidized housing projects
To make sure that all the tasks for this year are completed, we will steadily shift the focus of our efforts from mainly providing physical housing to providing both housing and financial subsidies, thereby subsidizing both homes and home buyers; we will make use of the PPP model and government procurement of services, guiding nongovernmental capital to become involved in purchasing, building, and managing public rental housing; we will actively support the rebuilding of rundown areas in the cities; and we will make good use of available housing. We will develop methods for performance assessment on urban government-subsidized housing projects. We will step up efforts to renovate dilapidated rural housing and coordinate efforts for making rural housing more resistant to earthquakes.
Culture
We will support accelerated development of a modern system of public cultural services, and take steady steps to make the delivery of basic public cultural services increasingly standardized and equitable. We will support implementation of the initiative to make sure Chinese culture is passed on, strengthen the protection of cultural heritage and traditional Chinese villages, and promote the development of folk culture and ethnic minority cultures. We will support efforts to help art and literature to thrive and cultivate cultural talent, and we will put our weight behind ensuring the production of more works of distinction that have depth, contain a positive social message, and demonstrate a human touch. We will support efforts to strengthen the international communication capacity of our key news media outlets, and integrate the development of traditional and emerging media. We will establish a sound system to boost the cultural sector, and accelerate the development of its key industries.
Administration of justice
We will support the establishment of circuit courts under the Supreme People's Court and the establishment of courts in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou for dealing with intellectual property rights related cases. We will push forward with trials to have provincial governments exercise unified management of and provide funding for the human, financial, and material resources of local courts and procuratorates below the provincial level. (Mo