Jan. 1, 2010

China's migrant workers are able to transfer their medical insurance from July 1, 2010, when they find new jobs in other provinces.

Workers are also able to change their medical insurance type based on their status, including urban workers' medical insurance, urban residents' medical insurance and rural cooperative medical insurance.

Under the new policy, pushed by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, if migrant workers leave their village to work in a city, their medical insurance will be urban workers' medical insurance.

Migrant workers hold a personal ID number which is the only code recognized by the medical insurance system allowing them to update their medical insurance information.

China's medical insurance system covers 1.2 billion people and the policy is believed to push forward reform in this area, CCTV reported.

Jan. 4, 2010

UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations agency tasked with fighting the spread of HIV on Jan. 4, 2010 congratulated the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States for lifting "discriminatory" travel limits that previously prevented people living with HIV from entering both nations.

Jan. 8, 2010

Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), urged to deepen fiscal and taxation system reforms, and improve the efficiency of fiscal management, so as to maintain steady and comparatively fast economic development.

It is imperative to continue the pro-active fiscal policy and moderately loose monetary policy, with priority given to the implementation of policies that support domestic consumption expansion, economic growth, economic structure adjustments and projects concerning people's livelihood, said Hu at a seminar attended by members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and researchers from the nation's top think tanks on Friday afternoon.

He also called for more investment in agriculture and rural areas, independent innovation and fostering of emerging strategic industries.

More fiscal resources should be channeled to promote public welfare development and back up undertakings concerning people's livelihood, especially education, employment, social security, medical care, affordable housing construction, and environmental protection, according to Hu.

Hu also called for improving the taxation system by optimizing taxation system structure, working out a more fair distribution of the tax burden, and standardizing income distribution, in a bid to promote healthy economic development.