President Jiang Zemin Monday said that civil affairs departments should serve the people better, especially people in urgent need of help, and work for the steady development of China's reform policies.
Jiang made the remarks in Beijing when meeting delegates attending the ongoing 11th National Conference on Civil Affairs Work.
The country's civil affairs work has made great progress in serving the country's economy and social development since the last national meeting was held in 1994, he noted.
He asked governments at various levels to pay more attention to civil affairs, caring more about people's difficulties and their future livelihood.
Premier Zhu Rongji also addressed the conference, saying that the civil administration in China now faces new opportunities as well as challenges.
Both the central government and local governments will allocate more money to secure people's minimum living standards in cities, he said.
And supervision will be strengthened to make sure that all the money is given to people in need, Zhu noted.
The premier said that a better national relief work net should be established to fight against present disasters and unexpected disasters in the future.
Communities in cities should play a more important role in helping people, and the civil administration also needs to make more effort to protect villagers' living and legal rights, Zhu added.
(China Daily May 28, 2002)
