Guangzhou is expanding its social security network to cover more items and people, including migrant workers.

The city's social security network now mainly covers company employees with Guangzhou hukou.

Zhang Jieming, director general of the municipal labor and social security bureau, said migrant workers, the self-employed and civil servants would also be covered.

Zhang said the new measures would be implemented soon.

The municipal government has in principle approved the plan to include self-employees in the medical insurance scheme. The plan is undergoing the final revision.

Civil servants in Guangzhou still enjoy free medical care. The city has submitted to the provincial government the plan to include them in the elementary medical insurance scheme. Apart from the medical insurance, civil servants will also be given medical subsidies, according to the municipal government's plan.

The city is also mulling an additional medical insurance scheme for company employees. The scheme is expected to provide more financial backing to those spending a lot on hospitalization services and those needing outpatient services for chronic illnesses.

The childbirth insurance, which currently only covers women with Guangzhou hukou, will open to all women in Guangzhou. The Guangzhou Development District and Panyu District had piloted in expanding the insurance to migrants but lost money on it, making authorities worry about even bigger deficits if further expanding the service. However, Zhang said it had been decided that the insurance should be expanded in a bid to maintain social justice. Zhang said a detailed plan was in the making and could be implemented in January next year if everything went well.

Some migrant workers have joined the industrial injury insurance after July 1. However, some workers and enterprises in the construction and mining industries are reluctant to take part in the scheme because they usually only labored for a employee for a short period. Workers and enterprises in high-risk industries can face severe financial hardship after being involved in accidents and authorities are working to persuade them to join the safety net.

Zhang said more than 800 million yuan (US$98.6 million) of the social security fund had been invested on 25 projects, mainly real estates, in the early 1990s, but 130 million yuan had been retrieved. The city was still retrieving the rest and people should not worry about the operation of the safety nets, Zhang said. The balance of the network was 18.69 billion yuan at the end of June, 2.33 billion yuan more than same time last year, and the government would have no problems covering the expenses of the social security system, Zhang said.

(Shenzhen Daily August 9, 2005)