We will speed up development of the social security system. We will ensure that all social security benefits are paid on time. We will improve the system of basic old-age insurance for urban workers. We will do a good job in the pilot project to properly set up individual retirement accounts and expand the trials to more areas. We will reform the way old-age pensions are calculated and paid, and introduce incentive and restraint mechanisms to encourage more people to participate in old-age insurance programs. We will extend coverage of social security programs to more employees of enterprises under all forms of ownership and to self-employed people and people without fixed employment in urban areas. We will strengthen collection of social security contributions, strengthen oversight and management of collected funds, and raise social security funds through a variety of channels. In addition, we will step up development of the basic medical, unemployment, workers' compensation and maternity insurance systems for urban residents and continue to improve the system of urban subsistence allowances. We will work out a plan for reforming the old-age insurance system in government bodies and institutions. We will work out social security measures suitable for rural migrant workers. We will improve the system for providing food, clothing, medical care, housing and burial expenses for childless and infirm rural residents, the system for providing assistance to families in extreme poverty and the system for providing relief to disaster victims by increasing financial support and appropriately raising the level of assistance. Governments in localities where conditions permit need to look for ways to set up a system of subsistence allowances for rural residents. All local governments need to accelerate development of community-based relief systems for urban and rural residents with special needs. We will improve the work of preventing, reducing and responding to disasters. We will intensify poverty alleviation work and increase investment in it to further reduce the number of people living in poverty. Preferential treatment will be given to the families of revolutionary martyrs and military personnel. We will continue to develop public welfare and charity programs and undertake various activities to solicit public contributions and participation. We must make sure that orphaned children and elderly and disabled persons with no source of income receive more care and assistance so they may experience the warmth of our large socialist family.

We will give a high priority to medical and health care work. We will concentrate on the following three areas to gradually resolve the lack of adequate and affordable medical services. First is to speed up the development of a rural medical and health care system. We will launch the Program for Establishing and Developing a Rural Health Care Service System to improve the system and network of medical and health care that spans the three levels of county, township and village. The state will spend more than 20 billion yuan over the next five years on renovating hospital buildings in towns and townships and in some counties and upgrading their equipment. We will speed up the establishment of a new type of rural cooperative medical care system by extending the scope of current trials to 40 percent of the counties in China this year and by increasing the allowances paid by the central and local governments to farmers participating in the system from 20 yuan to 40 yuan. An additional 4.2 billion yuan will be allocated from the central government budget for this program. By 2008, this new system and a rural medical assistance system should be basically in place in all rural areas. We will regularly send urban medical personnel to work in rural health facilities. Second is to strengthen urban community health services. We will accelerate the establishment of a new type of community-based system of urban medical and health care services by redirecting urban medical and health resources, increasing government spending, providing more training, improving services, and promoting innovations in mechanisms. Qualified community health care clinics will be included in the urban basic medical insurance program, and we will carry out pilot projects to gradually make community clinics the first option in medical treatment for minor medical problems, leaving hospitals free to treat only more serious problems. We will explore ways to set up an urban medical assistance system. Third is to deepen reform of the medical care and health service system and fully restore and standardize order in medical services and the production and marketing of medicines. We will improve oversight and management of prices for medicines and medical services. We will standardize the medical practices of hospitals and doctors and the way they prescribe drugs, and ensure that medical ethics and the medical code of conduct are strictly observed to improve medical services and control medical costs. We will support the development of traditional Chinese medicine and make full use of it in preventing and treating diseases. We will also intensify prevention of serious diseases that endanger the health of the general public and implement measures to prevent and control major communicable diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and snail fever. We will give a high priority to preventing and controlling the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza to humans.

We will maintain consistency in the current policy on family planning, keep the birthrate low, improve the health of newborns and take effective steps to correct the gender imbalance in newborns. We will extend the system for rewarding and supporting rural families that observe the family planning policy to more areas and expand the "Fewer Children Equals Faster Prosperity Project" in the western region. We will do a good job in work related to the elderly, protect the rights and interests of women and children, and launch more programs to help disabled persons.

We will continue to improve production safety. Ensuring production safety is a huge responsibility. We must not compromise production safety for the sake of economic development. We have adopted many measures in recent years to improve production safety, and safety has improved somewhat. However, it remains a major problem. The main reasons for this are: Production safety measures have not been truly implemented; enterprises do not take full responsibility for production safety; production safety equipment and facilities are backward; overheated demand for coal is straining both production and transportation facilities; basic safety work in enterprises is weak; and some enterprises commit serious violations of laws and regulations concerning production. In addition, some local officials and government employees commit serious neglect or dereliction of duty, and some go so far as to engage in corruption.