China's top legislature on Friday began deliberating a draft law
on employment promotion which calls for more financial support for
medium-and small-sized enterprises.
The draft law was submitted Friday to the 29th session of the
Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's
top legislature, for a third reading.
The draft law said the state will implement financial polices
favorable to employment promotion and expand channels of
fund-raising for medium-and small-sized companies.
The draft law said the state will encourage financial
institutions to improve financial services and enhance credit
support for medium-and small-sized companies.
The draft law said the state will support those who start their
own businesses by providing small loans in certain period.
The state will support economic development of ethnic minority
regions and expand employment in these areas, it said.
The draft law said employers should not refuse to employ
laborers of ethnic minority because they are ethnic minority people
or raise the threshold for employing ethnic minority people.
Government at or above the county level should build employment
forewarning systems to prevent, regulate and control possible
large-scale unemployment.
Enterprises should have education fund for employees and open
vocational training courses for employees.
The draft law, aiming to promote employment and prohibit job
discrimination, was submitted for the first review in February and
for thesecond review in June 2007.
The Law Committee of the NPC held that the draft law, after two
rounds of discussion and revision, has become relatively mature and
suggested that lawmakers examine and approve the bill at the end of
this session.
According to Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the
registered unemployed people in urban districts reached 8.38
million and the registered unemployment rate in urban districts was
4.1 percent by the end of last June, down 0.1 percentage point over
the same period of last year.
(Xinhua News Agency August 24 2007)
