China has achieved major progress in carrying out its urban minimum
living allowance system, which has covered the urban areas of the
country, according to a report released Wednesday by the Ministry
of Civil Affairs.
A
total of 21.825 million Chinese urban residents were registered as
recipients of the minimum living allowance up to August this year,
says the report.
The payment of the subsidies totaled 9.51 billion yuan (US$1.15
billion) for the first eight months this year, with 9.2billion yuan
from the central government. All the subsidies have been
distributed to the local destinations.
The poorest or laid-off workers and their relatives constitute the
majority of the urban recipients, most of them in northeast,
central and west China, the old industrial bases and mining bases
where resources have been exhausted. The number of recipients
exceeded 1 million in each of the provinces -- Liaoning, Jilin,
Heilongjiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hunan, Hubei and Sichuan,
according to the report.
(Xinhua News Agency October 9, 2003)
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