Macao Magnet

Macao recorded 21.63 million visitor arrivals in 2006, a rise of 21.4 percent over 2005, according to official statistics issued on January 22.

The figures released by the government-run Statistics and Census Service showed that the majority of visitors were from the Chinese mainland (54.5 percent), Hong Kong (31.6 percent) and Taiwan (6.5 percent).

Macao, with its famed casino gaming industry, has long been a tourism destination in Asia. The region, with a population of 508,000, logged 18.71 million visitor arrivals in 2005.

No Birth Privilege for Rich

More than 60 percent of Chinese netizens think it is unfair for rich and famous people to have more children than family planning policies allow, a newly released survey found.

The online survey of 7,917 Internet surfers, co-conducted by China Youth Daily and China's major web portal www.qq.com, showed that 68 percent of respondents said extra children for rich or famous people was a major problem.

The well-off don't care about the cost of an unplanned birth, they said. To shun the family planning policies, surfers claimed that some celebrities forged documents saying their first child suffered from a congenital disease, while others "bought" the birth permit for a second child to make the unplanned birth legal.

Zhang Weiqing, Director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said last year that the rich and famous have no privileges in relation to unplanned births.

Medical Insurance For Farmers

China's new rural cooperative medical care system, launched in 2003, is showing its effects on easing farmers' financial burden for medical treatment.

Under the system, each farming family pays 10 yuan per family member to a medical fund every year. The state and local governments also contribute 10 yuan to the fund. A family member is then entitled to a refund of a proportion of the cost of medical treatment.

According to a survey of 19,195 rural families in 32 counties of 17 provinces, more than 57 percent of China's rural families that joined the new rural cooperative medical care system had made claims for reimbursements of medical expenses by 2005. The families were reimbursed 25.7 percent of their total medical expenses, with an average refund of 731 yuan. Chinese farmers' per capital income in 2005 was 3,255 yuan.