China to improve public services in new five-year period
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?Improving basic public services will be a key task for China in the next five years, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee announced Monday.
Building a comprehensive and sustainable fundamental service system that worked in line with China's overall situation would help improve people's lives, said a communique released after the four-day plenum.
The system should cover urban and rural areas, and promote equal fundamental public services, said the communique.
The document called for employment promotion, increased incomes, strengthening of the social security system and accelerated reform and development of the healthcare sector.
Concrete measures to sustain social harmony and stability should also be taken, said the communique released after the plenum examined and approved proposals for the formulation of China's 12th Five-Year Program (2011-2015) on national economic and social development.
Chi Fulin, head of the Hainan-based China Institute for Reform and Development, said that establishment of a public service system and a public service-oriented government would lay the foundations for boosting domestic demand and sustainable development.
"It is important for the government to turn itself into a public service-oriented institution and achieve social justice," he said.
Better public services could lead to a better market environment so the government could rid itself of redundant administrative procedures and focus on the promotion of social justice, he said.
