|
Funding to ensure pension payments
By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-09-08 01:41
The central government will annually invest some 50 billion yuan (US$6
billion) to ensure timely pension payments to retirees in western and central
regions of China.
With additional 6 billion yuan (US$750 million) injection every year from
local governments, basic living expenditures can be covered for retired people
in urban regions of China's hinterland, said Vice-Minister of Labour and Social
Security Wang Dongjin Tuesday.
"We can basically manage the situation now but the nation is seriously
challenged because it has a rapidly growing ageing population," said Wang,
adding that 16 per cent of China's total pension payments currently come from
the government coffers and the rest is from old-age insurance.
He said the central government will maintain the injection rate for the next
several years in the western regions, while coastal and eastern provinces and
municipalities rarely have needed to rely on such support because of robust
economic strength.
Wang revealed the plan at Tuesday's press conference organized by the State
Council Information Office to provide details on China's first-ever white paper
on social security.
Wang and his colleagues showed serious concerns about China's increasingly
serious pension problems, while boasting that after years of experiments and
practice, a social security framework with Chinese characteristics has initially
taken shape.
Since China established and improved its socialist market economy system in
the mid-1980s, a series of reforms have been introduced to change the old social
security system practised under the planned economy.
China's social security system includes social insurance, social welfare, a
special care and placement system, social relief and housing services.
As the core of the social security system, social insurance includes old-age
insurance, unemployment insurance, medical insurance, work-related injury
insurance and maternity insurance.
"But regional differences still remain and we still have a long way to go
before reaching our goal," said Wang.
Wang said the country's goal is to have all of its 1.3 billion population
under its social security umbrella. Meanwhile, major social insurance should
cover all of the 250 million and 450 million working labourers in cities and
rural regions.
Hu Xiaoyi, spokesperson for Wang's ministry, said the Chinese government has
improved the old-age insurance system and reformed fund-raising modes in an
attempt to establish a multilevel, old-age insurance system.
China is now an ageing society. As the ageing of the population quickens, the
number of elderly people is becoming very large. This trend will reach its peak
in the 2030s, said Hu.
A recent report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was cited that
compared with developed countries, China's ageing problems will rapidly arise
amid its comparatively poorer social and economic conditions, posing severe
challenges to the country's lofty ambition of building an all-round, well-off
society.
Statistics show that, from 2000 to 2007, the number of Chinese people aged 65
or older will increase from the current less than 100 million to more than 200
million, up over 4 million per year and the aged will make up 14 per cent of the
total population.
But from 2028 to 2036, the number of the same group will surge from 200
million to over 300 million, indicating that the aged Chinese will increase by
some 10 million each year and make up 20 per cent of the nation's total
population.
Hu also said China's current framework of the support of the aged will also
confront historical challenges. There is no doubt that during the ongoing
transitional process, the lack of a huge amount of pensioners, or only 44.9 per
cent of the urban employees and 85.4 per cent of the retirees covered, remains a
tough issue that will require more governmental efforts.
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top China
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
