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Delegates to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China have stressed the importance of improving people's livelihoods.

Delegates to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China have stressed the importance of improving people's livelihoods at a recent press conference during the Congress on Monday, November 12 in Beijing. [Photo/Xinhua]

At a recent press conference during the Congress in Beijing, the media focused on the issues of subsidized housing, environmental protection and increasing worker incomes.

The wellbeing of the Chinese people, including their rights to education, employment and housing, have been highlighted in a report by Chinese President Hu Jintao at the opening of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

To echo this, a press conference focusing on people's livelihoods was held on the sidelines of the Party Congress. Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Jiang Weixin pledged at the event that China would begin building about 6 million affordable housing units in 2012.

China is engaged in building more than 7 million government-subsidized units this year as part of its five-year plan to construct 36 million affordable homes by 2015 in a bid to make housing accessible to low-income families.

Jiang Weixin also discussed the difficulties of carrying out this gigantic project.

"It is also a big task to build the affiliated infrastructure, including road, subways, schools, clinics and nurseries. In addition, there are many problems that arise from the distribution and management of these apartments, which will pose difficulties in the future."

Pollution has become a major societal concern in recent years. Minister of Environmental Protection Zhou Shengxian cited the control of nitrogen oxide, a major pollutant, as one of the obstacles in reducing pollution.

In 2011, emissions of nitrogen oxide rose in China. But during the first half of this year, levels of all four major air pollution emissions -- namely carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, ammonia nitrogen and nitrogen oxide -- began to drop.

Zhou Shengxian finds out the reason.

"It has been proved in many real situations that whenever there was a big environmental problem, we could always look back at our economic policies for an answer. So in the future we will employ additional market mechanisms and the law of value to improve the performance of our pollution control work."

Hu Jintao also stated in his speech that people's incomes should rise along with the country's economic growth. He pledged to deepen the reform of the country's income distribution system.

Zhu Zhixin, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, summarizes the main goals of Hu's report.

"Four goals were announced, including doubling the country's GDP, doubling rural and urban residents' incomes, ensuring that people's incomes rise in tandem with economic growth and issuing remuneration for workers in tandem with productivity."

Improving people's livelihoods has always been a priority for the Chinese government, which has worked hard to step up a series of reforms on the ground, such as those in health care infrastructure, to successfully address these issues, help maintain social stability, and increase the popularity of the ruling party.

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