Figure 5.Counties Achieving the Goal of Making Nine-year Compulsory Education Generally Available and Basically Eliminating Illiteracy Among Young and Middle-aged Adults Since 2003

    Figure 6.Coverage Rate, Based on County Units, of the New Rural Cooperative Medical Care System (Percent)

    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 of31 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.

    Figure 7.Per Capita Net Income of Rural Residents Since 2003

    Figure 8.Per Capita Disposable Income of Urban Residents Since 2003

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

    More efforts were made to conserve energy and resources and to develop a circular economy. Although targets for energy conservation and pollutant emission reduction set at the beginning of 2006 were not met, awareness of the importance of this work was increased throughout society and efforts were strengthened. The central government promulgated a decision to intensify energy conservation work and signed agreements with 30 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government), the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and several central government enterprises to meet energy conservation and pollution reduction targets. An accountability and assessment mechanism for meeting these targets was introduced, and a system to publish energy consumption per unit of GDP and water consumption per unit of industrial added value was officially launched. Good overall progress was made in ten major state energy conservation projects and funds from the sale of treasury bonds were used to support 111 key energy-saving projects. We launched an energy-saving campaign in about 1,000 large industrial enterprises high in energy consumption, to strengthen energy conservation management in these enterprises. The list of energy- and water-saving products subject to government procurement was adjusted, and the scope of mandatory energy efficiency labeling was expanded. Demand side management of power was enhanced. The policy of charging differential electricity rates for highly energy-consuming industries was tightened, and several local governments imposed surcharges for electricity used in excess of quotas. A widespread publicity campaign to promote energy conservation and environmental protection was launched, resulting in a notable increase in people's awareness of the issue. The first group of pilot projects for a circular economy were launched.

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