China aims to have another 50 million people employed in five years: Premier
18/3/2008 17:33
China aims to have another 50 million people employed in the coming five
years, Premier Wen Jiabao said in Beijing today.
"China is a developing
country with a population of 1.3 billion, which demands us to keep the economy
at an appropriate growth rate to confront the employment pressure," he said at a
press conference following the conclusion of the annual session of the National
People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature.
Providing adequate employment
opportunities in China, which has the largest population in the world, is a
"daunting challenge", Wen said two weeks ago when delivering a government work
report at the NPC session, vowing to redouble efforts to increase employment, a
matter that is "crucial to people's well-being".
Wen said at the press
conference the next five years is "a crucial stage for China to build a
moderately prosperous society" with the existence of both opportunities and
difficulties.
China will work to ensure that economy grow at a fast yet
steady pace and to hold down inflation during the period, he added.
He
pledged more investment in agriculture to ensure steady increase in the output
of grains and agricultural products.
China spent 66.6 billion yuan (about 9.3
billion US dollars) in the form of central government subsidies over the past
five years to support employment programs. These programs had helped more than
10 million urban people get jobs and 8 million rural workers find jobs in
non-agricultural sectors per year on average.
Tian Chengping, former minister
of labor and social security, said on the sidelines of the NPC session that the
employment situation will be "very severe" this year, even though China has
generated 51 million jobs in urban areas in the past five years.
About 20
million new job seekers emerge in urban and rural areas every year, and China
will have a large contingent of new labor market entrants for quite a long time,
according to Tian.
The urban unemployment rate in the past five years was
lower than 4.3 percent, but the target for this year was set at 4.5 percent due
to the severe employment situation.
Xinhua
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