Further improvement in the public health system and family planning was made last year. Funds totaling 2.7 billion yuan from the sale of treasury bonds and 1.7 billion yuan from local governments were pumped into infrastructure development of 5,436 town and township health clinics and 672 county-level hospitals, Chinese medical hospitals, and maternity and child-care centers. A number of food and drug inspection and supervision facilities were built in the central and western regions with funds from the sale of treasury bonds. A community-based health service network covering all big and medium-sized cities across the country began to take shape. The number of rural residents taking part in the new rural cooperative medical care system now totals 410 million and the coverage rate based on county units has reached 50.7%. The natural population growth rate was 5.28‰.

Culture, tourism and sports enjoyed rapid development. The goal of extending radio and TV coverage to every village with electricity and minimum size of 50 households was completely realized and the project to screen more movies in rural areas progressed smoothly. Steady progress was made in key cultural projects including the second phase of the National Library of China, the second phase of the China Art Gallery and some provincial museums. More emphasis was also placed on the protection of cultural heritage. Number of domestic and outbound tourist trips grew by 15% and 11.3% respectively. Infrastructure development for tourist areas around key sites in the early history of the CPC was expedited. Continued progress was made in the national fitness campaign. Construction was begun on 30 out of 31 venues for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

People received more real benefits in 2006. Per capita net income of rural residents and per capita disposable income of urban residents grew by 7.4% and 10.4% respectively in real terms. Minimum wage rates were raised in 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government. Systems were improved to ensure rural migrant workers in cities are paid on time and in full. The urban workforce expanded by 11.84 million, and urban registered unemployment at the end of the year stood at 4.1%. The social safety net was expanded, and the number of rural residents covered by basic old-age pensions, basic medical insurance, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation and maternity insurance increased by 11.62 million, 19.54 million, 5.39 million, 17.57 million and 10.38 million respectively. A system to provide basic cost of living allowances to rural residents was introduced in 25 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government. Assistance allowances to all entitled groups were raised by a large margin. A number of small infrastructure projects were built in poverty-stricken areas to create jobs and replace assistance allowances. In addition, 1.06 billion yuan was used for the trial relocation of impoverished people from inhospitable areas as a poverty relief effort, resulting in relocation of 240,000 poor people in the western region. Methods of compensating farmers for expropriated land to build reservoirs and follow-up policies for supporting their relocation were gradually improved, benefiting 22.88 million displaced rural residents. Inspections were conducted of the prices of products and services such as electricity, grain, fertilizer, drugs, refined oil and real estate, as well as charges levied on farmers and enterprises, educational fees, medical charges and taxi fares. Retail sales of consumer goods increased by 13.7%, up 0.8 percentage points year-on-year.

5. Efforts were intensified to save energy, reduce pollutant emission and protect the environment.