Local tea ceremony (COURTESY OF XIAMEN MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT)

Over the past 30 years, Xiamen has been carefully implementing a scientific outlook on development that is human-oriented and focused on comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development, actively advancing construction of a socialist harmonious society. When vigorously developing the economy, Xiamen has made remarkable achievements in social welfare, with the establishment of a multi-level social security system including employment, endowment, health care, education and housing.

Better education

Xiamen will implement the development strategy of "invigorating the city through science and education," and advance balanced development of compulsory education. As for pre-school education, Xiamen promotes the establishment of a public kindergarten in each township, and as for special education, the city exempts tuition fees and gives transport and living allowances to the students. Fiscal input in education by the SEZ is continuously increasing. The city's per-capita education expenditure ranks among the top in cities of similar types of the country and province, and conditions for running schools have been greatly improved. Since 2006 Xiamen has exempted tuition and miscellaneous fees in the compulsory education period, textbook and accommodation fees for rural students in the compulsory education period and offered living allowances to poor students in urban and rural areas. Scores of college entrance examinations by students in Xiamen have ranked first in the province for 10 consecutive years. The number of schools of various types and various levels rose from 595 in 1981 to 1,072 in 2010, the number of students increased from 168,400 to 692,100, the number of full-time teachers increased from 7,450 to 33,300 and the number of college graduates per 10,000 persons increased from 203 in 1982 to 1,780 in 2010.

Improved cultural services

After the establishment of the SEZ, with construction, renovation and expansion of a large amount of grassroots public cultural service facilities, Xiamen has been among the most advanced cities in cultural facilities. At the end of 2010 there were nine public libraries in Xiamen, with a total collection of 3.35 million books that had been borrowed 4.82 million times. There are eight cultural centers and four museums in the city. Xiamen has successfully hosted cultural events such as Cross-Straits (Xiamen) Cultural Industry Expo and Xiamen International Animation Festival and nurtured a lot of famous handicraft products for the cultural industry. Moreover, Xiamen pays attention to improving the international influence of the city's culture and art, successfully hosting cultural events with domestic and international influences, such as the Fourth World Choir Games, the 11th China Drama Festival and the Fourth China International Piano Competition.

In recent years, Xiamen SEZ has set up radio stations such as Xiamen News, Economy and Communications as well as music and television channels such as News, Cross-Straits and Xiamen TV. Cable TV now covers the whole island. Privately run film and television industry is developing fast, with the National Animation Base established in Xiamen. By the end of 2010, the city had offered five radio channels and eight television channels, with radio coverage of 100 percent and television coverage of 98.68 percent of the city's population.

Sports powerhouse

During the past 30 years, Xiamen has built large sports venues such as the Olympic Tennis Center, National Table Tennis Training Base, Shooting and Archery Center, Aquatic Sports Center, Soccer Training Base and Haicang Sports Center. It has installed massive fitness trails in communities and townships and built basketball courts in the countryside. Since 2003, the city has held the Xiamen International Marathon, with the number of participants increasing from 20,000 to 80,000. The competition has become a well-known sports event and has been rated as Gold Label Road Race by the International Association of Athletics Federations. By the end of 2010 there had been 54 sports organizations and 2,967 coaches for mass sports in the city, and 50 percent of the population had participated in regular sports activities.