CPC to address concerns on rising inequality

[email protected] (The Hindu)
November 13, 2012

China_migran

Beijing, November 13: Top Communist Party of China (CPC) officials on Monday pledged to expand the construction of low-income housing and to provide more support to a job market facing pressures from a continuing slowdown, amid growing public concerns about widening social inequality in the country.

As the Party prepares for leadership change, how it grapples with surging real estate prices, shutting out an increasing number of Chinese from buying homes; and how it will ensure employment for the millions of graduates and migrant workers flooding cities every year, are among its most pressing challenges, say officials and scholars.

Jiang Weixin, who heads the Ministry of Housing and Urban-rural Development, told reporters on Monday at a briefing along the sidelines of the 18th National Congress, which will conclude on Wednesday, that the government plans to build at least five million units of homes next year, following the construction of more than seven million units this past year.

Mr. Jiang acknowledged the problems affecting the provision of housing, starting with widespread complaints about a lack of transparency in the allocation of low-income homes. China plans to build 36 million units under the correct Five-Year Plan (2011-15). In the first year of the plan, the government built 10 million units at a cost of around $ 200 billion.

Rising real estate prices, coupled with problems in the provision of homes, have fuelled anger about the housing sector in recent months. According to China Development Research Foundation report, an official think-tank, local governments were shirking their responsibilities of building low-income housing projects. Instead, they were pursuing more lucrative luxury projects. Recent audits conducted by the central government found that close to three billion Yuan allocated for low-income housing developments had been diverted for other projects.

Assuaging concerns about rising real estate prices, Mr. Jiang said the government would not relax recently enforced property restrictions, such as barring third-home purchases. He said it was also “actively studying” expanding an experimental property tax, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

According to October's figures, housing sales rose 5.6 per cent after 10 months of this year to 4.63 trillion Yuan ($ 735 billion). Property investment accounts for 13% of China's gross domestic output and one-fifth of fixed asset investment, presenting the government with a tough balancing act while introducing cooling measures.

Separately on Monday, a CPC official in charge of employment, Yang Zhiming, warned that the job market in China was “feeling the pressure from the country's economic downshift”. “The impact of economic slowdown on the job market is starting to emerge”, Mr. Yang, who is also the Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security, told reporters. He said the growth of newly added jobs had been narrowing since April, exerting pressure on the job market with seven million college graduates estimated to have entered the job market this year. “China will continue to face the problem of labour oversupply for a long time,” he said, with urban employment at 4.1 per cent, below the government's 4.6 per cent target limit. The government, he added, would take steps to “boost labour-intensive industries” and “strategic emerging industries” to accelerate job growth, and would also encourage students to work in less developed central and western China.

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News Network
February 12,2020

Feb 12: China on Wednesday reported another drop in the number of new cases of a viral infection and 97 more deaths, pushing the total dead past 1,100 as postal services worldwide said delivery was being affected by the cancellation of many flights to China.

The National Health Commission said 2,015 new cases had been reported over the last 24 hours, declining for a second day. The total number of cases in mainland China reached 44,653, although many experts say a large number of others infected have gone uncounted.

The additional deaths raised the mainland toll to 1,113. Two people have died elsewhere, one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines.

In the port city of Tianjin, just southeast of Beijing, a cluster of cases has been traced to a department store in Baodi district. One-third of Tianjin’s 104 confirmed cases are in Baodi, the Xinhua state news agency reported.

A salesperson working in the store’s small home appliance section became the first individual in the cluster to be diagnosed on Jan. 31, Xinhua said. The store was already closed at that point, then disinfected on Feb. 1. Nevertheless, several more diagnoses soon followed.

The next to have their infections confirmed were also salespeople at the store. They had not visited Wuhan recently and, with the exception of one married couple, the patients worked in different sections of the store and did not know one another, according to Xinhua.

Japan’s Health Ministry said that 39 new cases have been confirmed on a cruise ship quarantined at Yokohama, bringing the total to 174 on the Diamond Princess.

The U.S. Postal Service said that it was “experiencing significant difficulties” in dispatching letters, parcels and express mail to China, including Hong Kong and Macau.

Both the U.S. and Singapore Post said in notes to their global counterparts that they are no longer accepting items destined for China, “until sufficient transport capacity becomes available.”

The Chinese mail service, China Post, said it was disinfecting postal offices, processing centers and vehicles to ensure the virus doesn’t spread via the mail and to protect staff.

It said the crisis is also impacting mail that transits China to other destinations including North Korea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The World Health Organization has named the disease caused by the virus as COVID-19, avoiding any animal or geographic designation to avoid stigmatization and to show the illness comes from a new coronavirus discovered in 2019.

The illness was first reported in December and connected to a food market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak has largely been concentrated.

Zhong Nanshan, a leading Chinese epidemiologist, said that while the virus outbreak in China may peak this month, the situation at the center of the crisis remains more challenging.

“We still need more time of hard working in Wuhan,” he said, describing the isolation of infected patients there a priority.

“We have to stop more people from being infected,” he said. “The problem of human-to-human transmission has not yet been resolved.”

Without enough facilities to handle the number of cases, Wuhan has been building prefabricated hospitals and converting a gym and other large spaces to house patients and try to isolate them from others.

China’s official media reported Tuesday that the top health officials in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, have been relieved of their duties. No reasons were given, although the province’s initial response was deemed slow and ineffective. Speculation that higher-level officials could be sacked has simmered, but doing so could spark political infighting and be a tacit admission of responsibility.

The virus outbreak has become the latest political challenge for the party and its leader, Xi Jinping, who despite accruing more political power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, has struggled to handle crises on multiple fronts. These include a sharply slowing domestic economy, the trade war with the U.S. and pushback on China’s increasingly aggressive foreign policies.

China is struggling to restart its economy after the annual Lunar New Year holiday was extended to try to curb the spread of the virus. About 60 million people are under virtual quarantine and many others are still working at home.

In Hong Kong, the diagnosis of four people living in an apartment building prompted worried comparisons with the deadly SARS pandemic of 17 years ago.

More than 100 people were evacuated from the building after a 62-year-old woman diagnosed with the virus was found living 10 floors directly below a man who was earlier confirmed with the virus.

Health officials called it a precautionary measure and sought to assuage fears of an epidemic, dismissing similarities to the SARS community outbreak at the Amoy Gardens housing estate in 2003.

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News Network
March 30,2020

Geneva, Mar 30: The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has reached 634,835, among them 29,957 fatalities, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.

Over the past 24 hours, 63,159 people were confirmed to be infected with the novel coronavirus and 3,464 people died, the WHO said.

According to the latest situation report, the majority of the confirmed cases - more than 361,000 - are presently concentrated in Europe, with Italy leading the tally with over 92,000 cases, followed by Spain with over 72,000 cases, and Germany with over 52,000 cases.

Italy and Spain are also the countries that top the worldwide death toll from COVID-19, with 10,023 and 5,690 fatalities, respectively.

The second most affected region is currently the Americas with over 120,000 verified COVID-19 cases, of which the majority - over 103,000 - have been found in the United States. The US is also the country with the highest single tally of COVID-19 cases at the moment.
The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11.

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News Network
April 12,2020

Apr 12: Pope Francis called on Sunday for an "immediate" ceasefire in global conflict and urged European nations to show "solidarity" in the face of a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 109,000 lives worldwide.

"May Christ our peace enlighten all who have responsibility in conflicts, that they may have the courage to support the appeal for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world," the pope said in a livestreamed Easter message.

Francis added that it was time for Europe, which he described as his "beloved continent", to "rise again, thanks to a concrete spirit of solidarity" similar to that shown after World War II.

Christians around the world are marking a solitary Easter, forced to celebrate the most joyful day in the Christian calendar largely alone amid the sorrowful reminders of the devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic

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