Over the past year, the Chinese government has adopted a series of major policies and measures, such as expanding domestic demand, restructuring economy, promoting economic growth and improving people's livelihood. The government has taken positive measures to properly cope with the international financial crisis, and has maintained sound yet rapid economic and social growth, thus effectively safeguarded people's rights to subsistence and development as well as their economic, social and cultural rights. Over this year, China has promulgated laws and regulations, including the law on intermediation and arbitration over land contract disputes in rural areas, the Food Safety Law, the regulation on the implementation of the Food Safety Law, and the regulation on fitness for all. China has also made amendments to the Labor Law, the Law on Education, the Law on Agriculture, the Law on Land Contract in Rural Areas, the Flood Control Law, and the Law on Maternal and Infant Health Care, guaranteeing citizens' economic, social and cultural rights to greater extent. Meanwhile, the government has taken forceful measures to address issues that have direct bearing on people's well-being, such as employment, health care, social security, increasing farmers' income, education, production safety, prevention against communicable diseases such as A/H1N1 influenza, so that people's rights in various areas have been effectively safeguarded on the basis of steady and fast economic growth. According to statistics, over the first nine months this year, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 7.7 percent; income of urban and rural residents increased by 10.5 percent and 9.2 percent respectively. About 8.51 million urban residents became employed, 4.02 million laid-off workers reemployed, and 1.2 million people having difficulty in finding jobs employed in the same period. China has been actively promoting the reform of the household registration system, relaxing limits on getting such registrations in small and medium cities. Various channels have been created to get farmers employed in non-farming sectors, and migrant workers' rights and interests have been safeguarded. By the end of September, there had been 152 million migrant workers across the nation, rallying to the level before the global financial crisis. In 2009, 19.73 billion yuan from the central budget were used in poverty reduction, up by 3 billion yuan from last year, and both the growth rate and increment were the highest ever since 1998. A total of 4.13 billion yuan was poured into poverty reduction loan funds. Meanwhile, rural poverty reduction subsidies have been raised to 1,196 yuan per person, covering 40.07 million rural needy people. Poverty reduction measures will apply to all low-income groups in rural areas. Social insurance system has improved, all social insurance compensation being paid in time and in full. The population covered by basic old age insurances, basic health insurances, employment, work injury and children-bearing insurances, and population of migrant workers covered by social insurances have all expanded. By the end of September, the population covered by basic health insurance had reached 362.95 million, 44.74 million more than that of last year. The population covered by new rural cooperative health insurances reached 833 million, 16 million more than that at the end of last year, the coverage ratio staying above 90 percent. In 2009, 61.46 billion yuan of the central budgets went to assistance for urban and rural low-income groups, and 8 billion yuan was used to subsidize urban and rural low-income groups in health care, representing increases of 69.3 percent and 58.7 percent respectively. The central government has made an extra investment of 20 billion yuan in improving the basic medical and health service system, so as to realize equal access among the Chinese to public health services. China has invested more in education, and made greater efforts to develop compulsory education, education in rural areas, and vocational education. The central government has spent 57.9 billion yuan on the reform of rural compulsory education funds guarantee mechanism, and exempted all rural students of compulsory education period, covering primary and junior high schools, from tuition and other fees. The government has also spent 5 billion yuan on renovating school buildings in rural junior high schools in central and western China. A financing system to aid students from poor families has been established and improved, and greater efforts have been made to guarantee citizens' rights to education.

Over the year, China has improved democracy and rule of law and tried to be politically advanced, expanding the scope of citizens' orderly participation in politics, safeguarding citizens' rights to know, to participate, to have voice heard, and to oversee according to law, and safeguarding human rights to greater extents in the administrative law enforcement and jurisdiction. The draft amendment to the Electoral Law, aimed at electing People's Congress deputies according to the same candidate/population proportion for urban and rural areas, has been submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for deliberation and is in the process of soliciting public opinions. The approval and implementation of the amendment will help improve the electoral procedure and guarantee equal rights of election for urban and rural residents. Since this year, all the draft laws deliberated by the NPC Standing Committee, including the food safety law, the tort liability law, the law on state compensation, the administrative mandatory power law, all with direct bearing on guarding citizens' rights, have been publicized on news media or websites in full text to solicit public opinions, expanding the orderly participation of the public in legislation and their access to legislative information. The Ordinance on Government Information Disclosure has come into force and the openness of political affairs has been vigorously promoted.