Chinese policies help revive local economies

Since the beginning of this year, the COVID-19 epidemic has marred employment in China, affecting people's livelihood, said Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at a press conference during the third session of the 13th National People's Congress.

As China has basically brought the epidemic under control, stabilizing employment has become the top priority in the country's economic policies.

"There is a city in western China that set up 36,000 stalls for itinerant traders according to local regulations, resulting in job creation in bulk," Li said.

In mid-March, the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu started allowing people to run businesses in designated areas on streets. As of May 28, the move has created more than 100,000 jobs.

Now,"street stall economy" has become a hot topic as more Chinese cities loosened restrictions on street stalls to help revive local economies. In south Yunnan's county of Jianshui, farmers began to sell vegetables and other produces on the streets. 

However, this is just one of the new practices, and China also issued other policies that involve financial aid to companies, online jobs haunting, and vocational training. 

Financial aid to enterprises

The key to stable employment is to try our best to help enterprises, especially small and individual businesses, tide over the difficulties. So far, China has issued diverse policies to cut taxes and fees, reduce rents and interest rates, and expand consumption. 

The timely guaranteed loans have eased the financial difficulties of enterprises, subsidies are offered to stabilize jobs and reduce the labor cost, and simplified steps are introduced to serve all kinds of talents. 

Jobs opportunities online

Since the resumption of work and production, enterprises all over China have conducted job interviews online, which turned out to be easy, fast, cost- saving for job seekers and employers.

Free vocational training 

For the laid-off employees in the service industry, the Fuzhou human resources bureau in east China’s Fujian province provided them with free vocational training before they are temporarily transferred to the manufacturing enterprises.

From spring to summer, free vocational training is recognized by more and more enterprises because it cut their running cost and guaranteed the basic income for employees. 

Source: Xinhua Net, Yunnan Daily and others; trans-editing by Wang Shixue and Yuan Yingcen