Press conference on guiding principles of the 4th plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee

Mo Gaoyi:

Thank you, Mr. Wang. Now let us invite Mr. Lei to present an overview of health and population development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Lei Haichao:

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I am very pleased to introduce to you the content related to health and population development from the fourth plenary session. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that people's health is a primary indicator of socialist modernization. The 20th CPC National Congress proposed building a healthy China by 2035. This historical task is very challenging, but has very bright prospects. The third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee proposed implementing a health-first strategy. This fourth plenary session further planned to accelerate building a healthy China and promote high-quality population development. This fully reflects the high attention of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core to people's health and high-quality population development.

You may notice that since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, our country's health and population development have made significant progress. We have built the world's largest medical service system, disease prevention and control system, and medical insurance system. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China withstood the shocks and tests of the once-in-a-century COVID-19 pandemic, creating a remarkable miracle in human history — as a populous country that successfully emerged from the pandemic. The average life expectancy of the Chinese people has continued to improve and increase. By the end of 2024, the average life expectancy of Chinese residents reached 79 years, which is a remarkable achievement among developing countries. Reflecting on the development over the years, we are full of confidence. Looking forward to the future, we feel that the prospects are bright. At the same time, our analysis shows that there are still imbalances and inadequacies in health development and population public services, and we must strive to meet people's rising expectations for a better, healthier life. To that end, the recommendations advance concrete steps toward promoting well-rounded personal development and common prosperity for all, and outline further plans and arrangements for public health and population initiatives.

Specifically, in accelerating the building of a healthy China, we are deploying several key tasks. Foremost among them is implementing a health-first strategy. The Party's health work principle in the new era proposes to integrate health into all policies and ensure shared contribution and benefits by all. The recommendations clearly propose implementing a health-first strategy, refining the framework of policies and institutions for promoting people's health, and delivering better outcomes in patriotic health campaigns to raise the average life expectancy and improve the people's health. This requires us to implement the strategic requirements of prioritizing health in planning, public investment, governance, and performance over the next five years. Second, we will coordinate development and security to provide strong guarantees and support for economic and social development. The recommendations specify that we should increase our public health capacity and effectively prevent and control major infectious diseases. We should actively strengthen comprehensive prevention and control of chronic diseases, increase our overall capacity in terms of emergency treatment, first aid, blood supply, and other aspects of emergency response, and provide better mental and psychological health services. Third, we will provide the public with fair, accessible, systematic, continuous, high-quality, and efficient health services. The recommendations call for improving the mechanisms for coordinated development and governance of medical services, medical insurance and pharmaceuticals, and promoting tiered diagnosis and treatment. We will advance unified management of basic medical insurance funds at the provincial level, and improve the policies on centralized medicine procurement, medical insurance payment, and the use of surplus funds. Guided by public welfare principles, we will deepen reforms related to the staffing, service charges, remuneration systems, and overall regulation of public hospitals. In addition, greater support should be provided for the running of county, district, and community-level medical institutions. We will refine the functions and layout of medical institutions, launch initiatives to strengthen community-level medical and health services. We will promote the preservation and innovative development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as well as integrated application of TCM and Western medicine. We will support the development of innovative drugs and medical apparatus and instruments.

In promoting high-quality population development, the key arrangements are as follows. First, we must build a childbirth-friendly society. The Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development explicitly advocate for a positive view of marriage and childbearing, calling for the optimization of family development policies and incentive measures. Efforts will be made to enhance the combined effects of child care subsidies, individual income tax deductions and other policies. We will deepen demonstration pilots for child care service subsidies and develop public-interest childcare services and integrated nursery and childcare services. These measures aim to effectively reduce the costs of pregnancy and childbirth, child-rearing, and schooling for families. We will improve and implement maternity insurance and parental leave policies. We will also strengthen health services for women and children. Second, we will promote elderly care. We will improve policy mechanisms to support the coordinated development of elderly care services and related industries. We will optimize the provision of basic elderly care services. We will also promote the integrated development of medical and elderly care services. Additionally, we will promote long-term care insurance, improve the care system for older adults with physical impairment and dementia, and expand the provision of rehabilitation and hospice care services. Third, we will encourage older adults to remain active and contribute to society. We will gradually raise the statutory retirement age in a prudent and orderly manner, optimize age-related restrictions on employment and social security, actively develop elderly human resources, and develop the silver economy. Health and population services should prioritize key groups such as older people, children and women, while also providing comprehensive services including disease prevention, health care, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation services for the entire population. This will help lay a solid foundation in terms of health care and population development for Chinese modernization. Thank you.