By Li Hongmei
China should dismantle its widely loathed hukou system (residency registration system), which restricts access to medical insurance and other benefits for hundreds of millions of migrants, a government think-tank said.
The Development Research Centre of the State Council, or the Cabinet, issued a list of far-reaching reform proposals ahead of a key meeting of the Communist Party of China due next month, when changes are expected to be approved.
Residency is a key controversy in China, where those who hold urban "hukou," or permits, have greater rights to state medical insurance, education and other services in each area, often excluding the hundreds of millions of people who have moved to cities over recent decades in search of better incomes.
The DRC said the system should be replaced with a "basic social safety package," including pension and medical insurance.
"All the benefits should be recorded in a personal social security card... that can be used nationwide," it said, according to excerpts published by the China News Service.
"With the moving of time and the expansion and improvement of the plan, it is expected to eventually replace the residency registration system."
The measure is aimed at "promoting the free migration of the people, ensuring the basic social benefits for the citizens, optimizing the distribution of resources and the improvement of productivity," it said.
The proposals have been submitted to the Party's third plenum meeting, the China Business News said yesterday, adding that one of the authors was Liu He, who played a leading role in drafting the official reform plan and is a vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning agency.
Other ideas in the DRC report, which did not give specific timetables, included publishing officials' personal assets; restructuring the state-monopoly railway, energy, telecom and financial sectors and open them to competition, and making the yuan an international currency within 10 years.
Property tax, which is being collected on a trial basis in some areas, should be rolled out nationwide and become a major income source for local governments. There should be a ban from buying farmers' land at low prices and reselling it to developers at huge profits.
