GET READY FOR SPORTS: A Chinese athlete waves the official flag of the Universiade at the inauguration ceremony of the Chinese delegation on August 1. The biennial event will be held in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, on August 12-23 (MENG YONGMIN)

Charity Transparency

The Red Cross Society of China (RCSC), one of China's leading government-sponsored charity organizations, launched a pilot online database on July 31 to disclose donation information.

Information on donations to the RCSC national organization after January 11, 2010 is available on the database. Users can search online for information by donors' names [http://fabu.redcross.org.cn/].

Moreover, netizens can examine the RCSC's 2010 audits and fiscal reports on the website.

The RCSC said the Chinese Red Cross Foundation and its local branches were setting up online databases, hoping to publicize all their donations in two years.

Domestic Service

The government is creating new national standards and favorable policies to accelerate the development of the country's fledgling domestic service businesses, said the National Office for the Development of the Domestic Service Sector.

These incentive policies are aimed at doubling the number of people employed in the domestic service sector. The industry currently employs some 15 million people, most of whom are migrants who have left their rural homes to find jobs in cities.

The National Office for the Development of the Domestic Service Sector and the Ministry of Finance are reportedly working on a policy that will exempt domestic service companies, which have hired their employees in accordance with the Labor Contract Law, from paying business taxes.

Undersea Survey

China concluded a survey of the southwest basin of the South China Sea on July 31, the China Geological Survey (CGS) said.

The expedition produced a "high-quality integrative geographic profile" of the basin's 1,000-km-long survey line, which stretches from the Xisha Islands to the Nansha Islands, according to a press release from the CGS.

The expedition will help scientists study tectonic activity in the South China Sea. Tectonic movements are important predictors of disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis.

The survey began on June 13 and was carried out by the Chinese research vessel Tanbao in collaboration with a French research unit.

Education Input

The Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Education released a joint circular on August 2 stipulating that local governments must use 10 percent of the funds realized by land transfers to boost education.

Local governments from the provincial level to the county level are obliged to implement this new rule and the money will be used to improve rural schools and purchase teaching equipment, the circular said.

The circular added that these funds are to be used in addition to local governments' ordinary education budgets and that budgets cannot be reduced in anticipation of these funds.

The Chinese Government plans to raise educational spending to 4 percent of the national GDP by 2012.

According to data released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, local governments raked in more than 7 trillion yuan ($1.09 trillion) through land sales to commercial developers over the past five years.