Shanghai plans to create 500,000 new jobs in 2004 in a bid to reduce the city's unemployment rate to under 4.6 percent, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Labor and Social Security said Friday.

Most of the new jobs will go to workers laid off from state-owned enterprises, said Director Zhu Junyi of the bureau at a meeting on employment and social security in 2004.

Zhu said the government will try to develop a number of projects this year, which are expected to provide about 10,000 new jobs each.

Individuals are encouraged to start their own businesses, and the government will make incentive policies concerning taxes and loans to support the endeavor.

According to the bureau, the municipal government created 460,000 new jobs in 2003, when the number of registered unemployed persons reached 300,000, with the unemployment rate standing at 4.9 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2004)