China focuses on poverty over New Year holiday

Chinese burn incense and pray for good luck on the first day of the Lunar New Year

(CNN) -- Top Chinese leaders have underscored the imperative of helping the poor, even as vicious incidents such as bombings have continued to increase.

On Lunar New Year's Day, Premier Zhu Rongji inspected the city of Chongqing, where he talked with workers, police and the unemployed and what the local media called "masses with difficulties."

While talking to the destitute, Zhu said the state would definitely come to their aid.

"Local officials must implement the policy of [providing] the minimal level of living subsidies to urban residents," Xinhua news agency quoted Zhu as saying.

"All households with difficulties which meet the criteria should have minimum livelihood guarantees."

The premier, who is stepping down in March 2003, has told his aides the improvement of the social security net will be a major focus of his last year in office.

In the fortnight running up to the Year of the Horse, senior Politburo members have held different meetings on ways to alleviate poverty particularly among peasants, more than 150 million of whom are unemployed.

Subsidies

Vice-Premier Wen Ziabao, who is in charge of agriculture, also spent time during Lunar New Year visiting farmers outside Beijing to reassure them of the central government's concern for their welfare.

Last year, the central government forked out 47.2 billion yuan on subsistence-level living subsidies to the jobless and retirees.

Beijing estimates that the number of laid-off urban workers this year will be 5.5 million, up from 5.15 million in 2001.

However, foreign experts put the figures at much higher levels, meaning the country's rudimentary social security system will be stretched to the limit.

Meanwhile, bombings and other vicious incidents, which have the past year hit provinces and cities ranging from rich Guangdong to poor Shaanxi Province, have continued unabated.

The official China News Service reported on Wednesday that a large vegetable market in Hefei, Anhui Province was rocked by a big explosion on Lunar New Year Day. There were no casualties.

Last Thursday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in coastal Hangzhou city, hurting four bystanders.

Local papers reported that these bombings might have been the act of individuals with grievances including failure to find jobs or to get unemployment benefits and compensation.