China.org.cn | December 11, 2019
Economic Daily:
Mr. Chairman, you just mentioned that over 70% of Xinjiang's general public budgetary expenditure is being used in ensuring and improving the people's livelihood. My question is what innovative measures have Xinjiang taken in terms of improving people's livelihood, such as in affordable education and medical care. Thank you.
Shohrat Zakir:
Thank you. Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has been espousing the people-centered development philosophy, delivering the outcomes of development to improving people's lives, benefiting various localities and enhancing ethnic solidarity. We continue to allocate 70% of our general public budgetary expenditure to ensure and improve people's livelihood, making continuous efforts in nine people-benefiting projects with focus on employment, education and medical care. Thus, people of all ethnic groups have enjoyed a much stronger sense of gain, happiness and security.
On employment, we have been improving services for college graduates and urban residents, and creating job opportunities for rural surplus labor, especially for those from deeply impoverished families. We also encourage people to start businesses and create jobs, and accelerate the implementation of the employment plan for surplus labor in the four prefectures in southern Xinjiang. We have ensured that at least one person from a family with available labor gets employed.
We also prioritize education. We have increased subsidies to students from impoverished families and ensured that all school-age youngsters have access to nine years of compulsory education. In the four prefectures in southern Xinjiang, 15-year free education is provided all the way from kindergarten to senior middle school. We have endeavored to ensure that education is affordable and quality teaching resources are accessible to every child.
On medical care, an annual free medical examination is available to all urban and rural residents, who are all under the coverage of accident insurance. We are now providing medical treatment for 133,000 people with tuberculosis, of whom 56,900 have been cured. Urban employees are fully insured against serious illnesses.
On social security, we are now implementing full coverage of social insurance and have been constantly improving the basic old-age, medical, unemployment, work-related injury and maternity insurance system. The work-related injury insurance fund is now managed by the autonomous region and we're now speeding up the building of a unified social insurance public service platform to ensure cross-region real time reimbursement and one-stop reimbursement for basic medical insurance and insurance for serious illnesses.
On housing, we have built 212,700 government-subsidized housing units in rural areas and renovated 154,900 units in run-down urban areas this year, all meeting or beating the annual target.
These are some of the specific measures we have taken in ensuring and improving people's livelihood. Thank you.