Shenzhen Mayor Xu Qin last week said that the city will be a city of happiness with more money to be spent on improving public services.
The mayor added that city officials will focus on improving the quality of life with a better environment, higher incomes and reduced living pressures. The city budgeted 17.5 billion RMB (2.65 billion USD) in public service expenditures for 2011, about 20 percent more than last year, according to the budget report for 2011.
About 9 billion RMB will be spent on education, 2.37 billion RMB more than last year. The money will be used to build and upgrade primary and middle schools, providing about 13,000 new seats for primary schools and 6,500 for middle schools this year. Another 4 billion RMB will be disbursed on health care, 14.6 percent more than last year. Seven public hospitals are now under construction.
City officials also plan to spend about 2.33 billion RMB on social security and creating jobs, an increase of 36.3 percent over last year. Health care and unemployment insurance schemes will also be expanded to cover more people. About 300 million RMB will be spent on helping the unemployed find jobs, 100 million RMB more than last year. And another 1.8 billion RMB will be spent on subsidizing public utilities such as gas, water and public buses.
