China's State Council held an executive meeting on Wednesday, stressing the improved provision of Internet services as well as the strengthening of medical-insurance support.

 

The meeting, chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, called for continued efforts to improve Internet provision by increasing connection speeds and lowering service costs, thus further benefiting businesses and society.

 

For this purpose, China will promote the construction and application of the 5G Internet and gigabit network, with the gigabit optical network expected to cover more than 200 million households by the end of this year, according to the meeting.

 

The country will encourage telecommunications companies to further cut the average fees of broadband and dedicated lines for small and medium-sized enterprises by 10 percent, and provide preferential broadband charges for those with special needs.

 

As well as lowering market entry appropriately for companies providing broadband installation services, the meeting called for the collaborative construction and sharing of telecommunications infrastructure.

 

On the health front, the meeting announced measures to bolster the country's mutual-aid medical-insurance mechanism to ease the burden on patients.

 

Amid efforts to deepen reforms of the healthcare system, the meeting decided to incorporate more types of outpatient fees into the country's medical reimbursement list.

 

The country will fine-tune the payment rules for personal medical-insurance accounts, while expanding the use of accounts and allowing family sharing, according to the meeting.

 

It also called for tightened inspection and regulation of the use of medical-insurance funds, and allowed a roughly three-year transition period for provincial governments in the process of implementing the aforementioned reforms.