The Chinese capital Beijing will spend 4.5 billion yuan (US$542 million) on urban infrastructure construction in 2003, with priority given to developing urban rail transport and building more roads, a senior local official said Tuesday.
Explaining the Beijing Municipal Government's draft fiscal budget to the ongoing session of the municipal legislature, Wu Shixiong, director of the city's finance department, said that the budget aims to improve the quality of life for local residents.
The city government plans to allocate 4.09 billion yuan (US$493 million) for the improvement of the local social protection network in 2003, said Wu.
The money will be used to ensure the timely and full payment of pensions for enterprise retirees, support the reform of the basic medicare insurance system, help more unemployed persons to locate employment and promote health care in rural areas, he said.
It will also cost the city 2.1 billion yuan (US$253 million) to improve the urban environment through air pollution control and other efforts, said the director.
The fiscal budget for 2003 also contains several special funds, including 1 billion yuan (US$120 million) for preliminary work for the 2008 Olympics, 1.45 billion yuan (US$175 million) for local industrial and economic restructuring, and another 1.8 billion yuan (US$217 million) for the development of a science and technology park in the Zhongguancun area, a booming hi-tech center in northwest Beijing.
(People's Daily January 15, 2003)
