1. Xinmin Evening News: I’m from Xinmin Evening News. I’ve two questions. The first question is for the government spokeswoman. As I remember, in the local law on protecting women’s rights that Shanghai People’s Congress passed in 2006, it was stipulated that the city will offer free gynecological exams for needy and retired women. I noticed that the offer has also included in the city’s 2008 list of Good Deeds. Could you tell us what difficulties the city has encountered in implementing the 2006 law and what efforts the city has made to solve the difficulties? My second question is for Mr Pang Yuan of the city’s housing and land resources bureau. You talked about the city’s program of developing energy and land-efficient housing in details just now, and what are the characteristics of the program?

Jiao Yang: Good questions. One of the Good Deeds the city government plans to do this year is to offer free gynecological exams and breast cancer checks for 300,000 retired and needy women, and it is the first time (the city offers the service). In addition, about one-third of the 23 programs in nine categories have been running for several years, and two-thirds are new programs, including the one the reporter mentioned.

As we know, gynecological ailments and breast cancer, which the program focuses on, account for one-sixth of the malignant tumors inflicting women, with the incidence rate of breast cancer for Shanghai women up 17 percent in 2006 over the previous year. These serious illnesses endanger the health of local women, raising their due concern. The state Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights is already in place, and as you said, the city adopted the Measures on Implementing the Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights on April 26, 2007. Article 24 of the Measures says,“Work units should arrange a checkup for gynecological and breast illnesses for their female employees every two years,”and that“the city and district governments should arrange a checkup for gynecological and breast illnesses for retired and needy women at least every two years.”

Before adopting the measures, the city had initiated the“Needy Women’s Health Program”as part of its efforts to push forward its women’s development plan in 1999. The program has raised charitable funds to support the free gynecological checkups for 240,000 needy women in the city and won praise from women and the public. What have been the difficulties we encountered in carrying out the program? The difficulties are that because the program mainly had to rely on support from society and there were no stable sources of fund, the checkup fee of 18 yuan offered for each woman is not enough. The program is on the one hand a concrete step taken by the city government to protect the women’s right to health in line with the Shanghai Measures to Implement the“Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests, P.R. China,”and part of the efforts by the city government to do good deeds for women. In 2007, thanks to the endeavor spearheaded by the city’s women and children’s commission and participated by the departments of public health, finance, civil affairs, family planning, trade union, women’s federation and retiree administration, more than 310,000 women, including those retired and from needy families, had check-ups. After the physicals, all those diagnosed with serious ailments received medical treatment at the medical institute designated by the city health bureau, the Shanghai Tumor Hospital, in the earliest time and got financial aid (for medical treatment and nutrition supplements) from the Shanghai Charity Foundation. That reached the goal of“early discovery, early intervention and early treatment”in protecting women’s health and life and earned praises from the women citizens.

This year the city plans to offer free check-ups for another 300,000 women. It classifies needy women into three groups: those urban residents living on poverty pension and those rural ones from needy families; those working for charitable services and those from families suffering from family planning-related difficulties, and those retired workers meeting the qualifications. So it is a charitable program benefiting millions of women.

Pang Yuan: Thank you for the question. The main features of the goals and content of the Directive on Building Energy-efficient and Land-saving Residences in the City are as follows:

One, the directive is based on current situation. The directive has been worked out by following the requirements by the Ministry of Construction and Ministry of Land and Resources, paying close attention to the real situation in Shanghai, relying on project research and pilot programs, systematically analyzing the development potential for the city’s residences, exploring the potential for saving energy and land, and widely consulting experts and developers to make sure that forecast, reality and feasibility fit together.

Two, the directive highlights the key points and aim at a leading role. After studying and analyzing cases in other provinces and cities, Shanghai has set it a starting point in the near future to promote medium and small-sized homes, heat-retaining and energy-saving building enclosures, use of recyclable energy and decoration-complete housing. By specifying goals, defining measures and intensifying enforcement, the city aims to be a leader among its peer regions in the country in housing energy saving.

Three, the directive takes an overall standpoint and spell out a systematic implementation. The program is characterized by a wide coverage, high comprehensiveness and great potential. Focusing on saving of land, energy, water and material and on environment protection, the document specifies the development targets and key tasks while emphasizing the combination of forcible execution and guidance to ensure energy saving and quality improvement in building new residences.

Thank you.

2. Wenhui Daily: I’m from Wenhui Daily. We found that the“Good Deeds”project of the city government includes a“Sunshine Fleet”discount ride service. Could you give us some details of the service? Another question. Today it snowed a bit in Shanghai and the temperature is quite low. Is the city well prepared for power and gas supplies? The third question is for Mr Pang Yuan. Could you illustrate the future residential communities by citing a typical example?

Jiao Yang: The Sunshine Fleet is also one of the highlights of the city government’s“Good Deeds”project. I’d like to say something about the disabled people in Shanghai. According to the second nationwide sample survey of disabled people in Shanghai, there were 272,000 disabled people in the city in 2006, including 101,000 with multiple disabled parts. It was estimated that about 60,000 of them have difficulty in traveling about. To make matters worse, the city doesn’t have no-barrier buses. To solve the problem, the city leaders pooled up the construction and communications commission, the communications bureau, the disabled people federation and Dazhong Taxi Co in forming a fleet of 50 buses equipped with elevator wheelchairs after public bidding and evaluation. Dazhong Transport Group contributed 20 million yuan to the fleet, which caters to medium and seriously disabled people.

At present, relevant authorities are working on a discount package that includes a Sunshine Fleet card. The card can allow a disabled person to book a car and entitles them to priority boarding on a Sunshine Fleet bus or no-barrier taxi in the downtown area or a discount fare (Discounts will vary, depending on the type of vehicles and distance of trips, for medium and seriously disabled persons and those with multiple disabled parts including an impaired leg; and priority boarding is granted to those with slightly disabled legs).

The procedure of issuing the cards goes like this: After getting a notification from the grassroots-level disabled persons federation, the disabled can apply to the city office for disabled people which is in charge of verification and approval, and then the district-level disabled persons federation will issue the cards.

Besides the Sunshine Fleet, the city had the front passenger seats of 90 taxis refitted into swivel seats for slightly disabled passengers last year when the city was preparing for the Special Olympics. The 2008“Good Deeds”project will help improve the Sunshine Fleet service for disabled people.

The city government pays great attention to the power and gas supplies that concern the people’s life and city safety. The recent bad weather has steadily raised the city’s peak power load. The peak power load reached 17.8 million kilowatt-hours on the morning of January 16, a record high for a winter day in Shanghai. Given that, the city government departments, especially the economic commission, issued a directive to relevant work units, demanding them pay close attention to the climate changes and take active steps to epitomize power distribution, including outsourcing power supply, and perfect power supply emergency plans in an effort to ensure a stable supply to key work units and households.

According to the forecast of the city administration department, during the coming Spring Festival the volume of daily peak natural gas consumption in town will reach 8.68 million cubic meters, that for the coal gas will reach 8.3 million cubic meters, and the household consumption of liquefied petroleum gas 1,200 tons. The city gas authorities have come up with a feasible plan to ensure supply during the peak hours as well as an emergency plan. The city has taken the following steps to ensure gas supply during this winter. Firstly, efforts have been made to outsource gas to increase the natural gas supply during peak hours to the maximum level. Secondly, steps have been taken to ensure smooth operation of the gas-generation equipment. Gas generation enterprises have conducted an overall check to make sure their equipment is able to work at full capacity consecutively to meet the challenge during this winter’s peak hours. Thirdly, gas sales companies have made sure that gas conduits work properly following safety checks on all their equipment. Fourthly, gas facilities have been checked for hidden hazards, and all problems discovered have been fixed. Fifthly, education and publicity programs about safe gas use have stepped up. Gas administrations in all the districts have carried out education and publicity among local communities and checked the special gas users to raise the residents’safe gas awareness. Mr Pang will answer the third question.

Pang Yuan: For the third question of Wenhui Daily, I’ll take a typical residential area as an example to show how a residence can save energy. We’ve carried out calculations at a residential complex outside the Outer Ring Road. The total floor area in the complex is about 115,000 square meters (a mid-sized community), housing 1,019 families. The ratio of the floor area to land on which the buildings, which range from several stories to more than 10 stories, stand is 1.2. Nearly 40 percent of the open space is covered with greens. What energy-efficient and resources-saving features does the community have?

Energy saving is achieved in the following two ways: one, the energy-saving ratio of the air conditioning and heating system reaches 65 percent, a second-tier standard for energy saving. In this way, 762,000 kilowatt-hours of power is saved each year in the complex, and the homes are more comfortable in terms of warmth; two, the solar energy is made better use of here. Some homes have the built-in solar-heating system. The area of the heat-arrest dishes totals 320 square meters, with each square meter turning out 60 liters of water about 60 degrees Celsius. So 160,000-170,000 kilowatt-hours of power is saved each year.

Water saving is achieved in the following two ways. One, water-saving toilet bowls are used. Many homes in the city use the 9-liter toilet bowls, but in future 3-liter and 6-liter ones will be used (to save water). In addition, shower devices that save 35 percent of water are used. The two measures can save about 50,000 cubic meters of water in the community each year. Two, the rain water and river water are used in an efficient way. About 20 percent of water for non-drinking uses in the complex comes from rain collected from rooftops and the rest from river water, saving about 60,000 cubic meters of water each year. The cost of operating every cubic meters of rain processed is about 0.5 yuan to 0.6 yuan, so the economical effect is obvious. In all, the complex saves nearly 110,000 cubic meters of water annually, and the rate of water saving is 35 percent.

Land saving is achieved in the following way. The proportion of medium and small apartments in the community is increased. The average floor area of the apartments in the complex is about 110 square meters, By comparison, the apartments in the city averaged 120 square meters at the end of 2005. The complex has 86 more apartments than otherwise. After all, the figures were reached based on our calculation. We have to follow the No.37 document of the State Council that stipulates that more than 70 percent of the apartments in a community must be within 90 square meters, and we’ve set it as our short-term goal.

To save resources, all the apartments in the complex are finished homes upon sale to avoid waste of material and newly created construction debris resulting from further decorations. So the complex avoids at least 1,000 tons of construction debris from further decorations. Therefore, the finished apartments can save a lot of resources and cut the homeowners’spending.

Thank you.

3. Labor Daily: Hello, Mr Pang, I’m from the Labor Daily. Shanghai plans to promote the budget homes this year. I’d like to know something about the sources of fund and land for the budget homes and whether (people will have) limited ownership (of these homes)?

Pang Yuan: Thank you for the question. The public pays a lot of attention to the budget homes that were required in clear words by the State Council’s No. 24 document. As for Shanghai, it must speed up its efforts to establish and improve a budget homes system to ensure the medium and low-income families have homes in line with the Measures on the Management of Budget Homes issued by the Ministry of Construction and six other central government departments and Suggestions on Solving the Housing Problems of Low-income Families, Shanghai Municipal Government (H.F.F[2007] No. 45). Relevant departments of the city government are busy working on a plan for developing budget homes from 2008 to 2012. Meanwhile, the city is working on the Implementation Measures on the Management of Budget Homes, Shanghai. Your questions are very good, and some of the answers will be officially announced during the annual meetings of the city’s congress and advisory body this year. It is required that the government departments lose no time in carrying out these measures once they are announced. The land for the budget homes will be allocated according to the state regulations, and the budget homes will either be newly built or refitted from current houses.

4. Shanghai Television Station: Thank you. I’m from Shanghai Television Station. Mr Pang, you talked about the directives and targets on how to save energy and land in building new homes. Could you tell us the status quo of residences’resource and energy saving in Shanghai and the drawbacks in these aspects?

Pang Yuan: Thank you for the questions. Okay, one is the status quo and the other the drawbacks.

Speaking of the resources and energy, first comes the shortage of land in Shanghai. Residences account for about 37 percent of all the land set part for urban construction The average floor area of the apartment is, relatively speaking, bigger than normal, according to statistics obtained at the end of 2005. I mentioned that the average floor area was 120 square meters. There are relatively a smaller number of apartments on the same land than otherwise. In the past, only building density is mentioned in (government) directives, leaving a loophole that the total floor area of the apartments allowed to be built is calculated by multiplying the building density by the land area. But there were no requirements on the minimum number of apartments on the land. As a result, some apartments are relatively large, and unreasonably large. Second, the energy use. According to research results by relevant departments, residential houses consume more than 8 percent of the total amount of energy Shanghai consumes in 2005, contributing to records after records of power consumption in town. The question is a hot topic among the public especially on hot and cold days. The Wenhui Daily just now also asked Jiao Yang whether the power supply is enough. In contrast, citizens prefer houses more comfortable than before, which usually consume much more energy. Three, residential water consumption. Shanghai is a typical Chinese city that is short of drinking water. In 2005, the urban residents used 812 million cubic meters of water, or 36 percent of the total amount of tap water the city consumed in the year. In addition, a great amount of good-quality tap water is used for greenbelts and fountains in residential complexes while an annual 1,000 millimeters of rain water isn’t recycled. Four, decoration material. The interior decoration by homeowners created waste of material and hidden safety dangers. All in all, the program to cut energy consumption and reduce waste involves many factors and has a great potential.

Given the status quo and the current problems, we feel the Directives, drawn up in a timely manner, will push forward the saving of energy and resources and speed up the reform of housing and consumption modes in the city. So I talked about the status quo side by side with the drawbacks.

5. Reuters: Hello, I’m from Reuters. Recently some citizens have protested the construction of the Maglev line linking the airports. They say the line is too close to their homes, only 22.5 meters, much closer than the German requirement of 500 meters. What’s your comment on this? Thank you.

Jiao Yang: Projects related to the line are still undergoing the stage of seeking opinions, and the city’s urban planning and environment protection departments have paid great attention to the issue. You may have read the news that Shanghai Maglev Transport Development Co Ltd, Shanghai Institute of Environment Science and Shanghai Urban Planning Administration said they will sort and analyze opinions and suggestions forwarded by the public during the opinion-seeking period and organize experts to evaluate and demonstrate these opinions and suggestions. The results of the demonstrations will be announced at a proper time for seek further public opinions.

To get more public opinions, authorities have set up opinion collection sites in neighborhoods and towns and residential areas, opened hotlines and emails to ensure the public has enough and convenient channels to express their opinions and suggestions. Citizens are welcome to write or phone the evaluation and construction units while they are expected to express their opinions and suggestions in a legal and ration way through the above-mentioned channels, uphold the social order, and cherish the harmony and stability in Shanghai.

The technological specifications have been covered in the opinion-seeking announcement, and authorities will listen to opinions from all walks of life and analyze and demonstrate them. I’ll not discuss the technological issues. Thank you.

6. Eastday.com: Hello, I’m from Eastday.com. One question: how is the construction of security facilities in the residential areas in the city? And what is goal for this year? Another question is for Mr Pang. The Directive concerns energy saving in newly built homes, but what about the existent homes? Thank you.

Pang Yuan: We’ve also carried out comprehensive rectification measures in old communities to save energy and water. For example, water-saving facilities like toilet bowls are increased and second-hand water supply facilities are renovated to improve drinking water quality and reduce leak of water pipes to save more water. A program has started in 1999 to refit those horizontal roofs into slope ones to solve the heat-insulation problems for roof-top homes, which saves an estimated 6 percent of energy. Meanwhile, the layouts of the room have undergone reforms to improve their functions, and windows, out walls, roofs and water-saving utensils have been refitted. We have a package of plans to gear up to the new technologies used in the industrialized development of residential projects. Our focus has also been placed on solving the long-standing problems in the old communities, improving their living condition and pushing forward the resource-saving program in residential areas.

Thank you.

Jiao Yang: Speaking about the security facilities in 500 residential areas. The residential areas are where our homes are, and that is why millions of families are concerned about the security of the closed-type residential complexes. There are 2,679 closed-type residential areas in Shanghai. Among them, 2,344 (or 87 percent of the total) have surveillance cameras, 89.5 percent of which are working properly; 2,498 (or 93.2 percent of the total), have intercoms, 99 percent of which are working properly; and 2,123 (or 79.2 percent) have border alert devices, 95.4 percent working properly. There are 1,918 families, or 71.6 percent of the total, living in those close-type residential complexes where all the three type of security systems are working properly. These security devices helped police crack 113 theft cases in 2,679 closed-type communities in 2007 and track down 106 suspected thieves. The devices helped cut the break-in burglary cases by 2.6 percentage points compared with 2006.

As some residential areas (especially those dominated by decades-old buildings) have no security devices and others have faulty devices for lack of maintenance, the city has included“perfecting security devices in 500 closed-type residential complexes”into its 2008 Good Deeds project to gradually meet the goal of“minimalizing the preventable criminal cases in residential areas.”The exact steps include installing surveillance cameras at the entrances and underground garages of the communities and 10,000 electrical anti-theft doors in the old residential buildings. These measures will play an active role in preventing, detecting and deterring break-in burglaries and other crimes and bolstering citizens’sense of security.

Starting from 2008, public security, real estate, fiancéand tax authorities will work together to step up security work in all the 9,838 residential complexes. They will work out policies and measures to ensure that surveillance cameras and intercoms will be installed in all the closed-type residential communities (which refer to those that have walls, fences and rivers as borders) by 2010, all the qualified non-closed-type complexes have electrical intercom-complete anti-theft doors, and all residential complexes have guards.

7. Yomiuri Shimbun: I’m from Yomiuri Shimbun. The spokeswoman gave us a clear picture about the Maglev line. I’d like to know whether the city will change its plan to build the Maglev after listening to citizens’opinion. And must the city build the line? Thank you.

Jiao Yang: I said just now that it is still in the opinion-seeking phase, and we’re sorting, analyzing and studying all advice and suggestions. After that we’ll invite experts to do demonstrations and then we’ll ask for more public opinions. So I cannot give you a conclusive answer so far.

That’s all for today’s press conference. Thank the press and Mr Pang Yuan for the time.