With regard to health care, the government will devote more efforts to building community hospitals in urban areas and deploy special funds to community public health, so that urban residents can enjoy basic public health services in their own communities.

"Finance departments should put those policies in place and help solve problems related to the access to and high cost of medicare," said Zhang.

In 2007, the free treatment of infectious diseases should be expanded, Zhang said. The basic medicare insurance program will further expand its coverage rate, and more efforts will be made to guarantee food and drug security.

In terms of social security, both the pension and the aid for needy people will be raised. Moreover, the government will promote a series of employment training and employment-related services.

The government's support for public services wins applause from experts. Economic professor Lin Shuanglin from Tsinghua University noted that the urgent task now is to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, and the most efficient way is to provide more public facilities for the poor. Those facilities, in effect, will help reduce the living costs of the needy, which will indirectly raise their incomes.

Expenditure growth slowed down

The State Information Center estimates that in 2007 the growth of both fiscal revenue and fiscal expenditure will be lower than those of 2006. It is estimated that the fiscal expenditure growth will be about 14 percent in 2007. In 2006, the growth of fiscal revenue and fiscal expenditure was 24 percent and 16.9 percent respectively.

It is reported that due to the government's control over investment speed, the growth of infrastructure construction slowed down in 2006. From January to October, expenditures on infrastructure construction increased by 12.2 percent, 3.8 percentage points lower than that of 2005. This trend will continue in 2007.

Expenditures on culture, education, science and public health will grow steadily. From January to October 2006, expenditures in those sectors hit 495.42 billion yuan, up 15.1 percent compared with the same period of the previous year. This year, the amount will continue to increase to some extent.

In the first 10 months of 2006, national defense expenditures increased 14.2 percent, 0.3 percentage points lower than the same period in 2005. The administrative management fees grew by 14.3 percent, 1.6 percentage points lower. Expenditures on the aforementioned two items won't experience major changes in 2007.

Rural and agricultural development is expected to see the largest growth in financial expenditure this year.

"But, as the expenditure won't take an overly large proportion of fiscal revenue, it will not hike the overall budget," said Lin.