More Spending in People's Livelihood

China's draft central and local budgets for 2012, submitted for reading at the parliamentary session Monday, caught eyes for increasing government spending on livelihood programs.

In the central budget, double-digit growth rates are seen in main expenditure items of importance to people's life, such as education, medical care, social security and employment, housing, culture service and agriculture.

According to the report, expenditure budget to education totals 378.13 billion yuan (US$60.02 billion), an increase of 16.4 percent over the actual expenditure in 2011.

The figure for medical and health care is 203.51 billion yuan, up 16.4 percent while that for social security and employment is 575.07 billion yuan, a rise of 21.9 percent.

About 211.76 billion yuan will go to guaranteeing adequate housing, an increase of 23.1 percent.

"An analysis of the above expenditures shows that in 2012 the central government will spend a total of 1.3848 trillion yuan, an increase of 19.8 percent, in areas that directly affect people's lives," the report said.

In terms of local budgets, the expenditure items such as education, medical care, social security and housing also see notable growth, varing from 14.2 percent to 18.4 percent.

"Taking all factors into consideration, governments at all levels will concentrate financial resources to accomplish several major tasks aimed at maintaining and improving living standards in 2012," the report said.

The tasks refer to ensuring the education spending to reach 4 percent of GDP, expanding social security system, pushing medical reform, building more than 7 million units of government-subsidized housing, and improving cultural service and rural prosperity.

Steven Dunaway, a scholar with the New York-based think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, told Xinhua that improving people's livelihood is critical to China's future.

"Doing so is essential for bringing about the needed rebalancing of China's economy away from heavy dependence on investment and exports to greater reliance on consumption to drive growth," he said.

The government needs to do more in particular to improve education, health care, and pensions, he added.

The draft report on the central and local budgets for 2012 will be deliberated by deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's national lawmakers, who will vote on the 2012 central budget.