China made great efforts to improve social development and spent a total of 245.2 billion yuan on social services and social security in 2004.

Chen Fujin, vice president of China National School of Administration, made the remark at the Second China-Europe Senior Forum on Government Management held here on Tuesday.

Chen said in 2004 China's central budget spending for science and technology, education, culture, health and sports amounted to 98.7 billion yuan (US$12.2 billion), an increase of 15 percent over the previous year, and a total of 146.5 billion yuan (US$18.1 billion) was spent from the central budget for social security, increasing by 18.1 percent.

More than 200 Chinese and European government officials and experts gave lectures and exchanged views on how to innovate social management at the three-day forum.

Chen said China has done a lot of work in innovating social management. Governments at all levels have kept increasing spending on social services, and a stable social security system which mainly contains endowment insurance, unemployment insurance and medical insurance has been set up, he said.

Growing spending from central budget on rural areas' social services has gradually improved rural areas' social development which has lagged behind that in towns and cities, said Chen, adding that China's social relief ability has also been greatly raised, and the central government allocated 3.2 billion yuan (US$0.4 billion) of disaster relief subsidy in last year and helped 68 million disaster-hit people.

Chinese people have continuously raised their awareness of democracy and law and showed more activeness and creativity in participating in social development affairs, while the governments provided more channels for the people to express their ideas and requirements, said Chen.

But it is not enough, noted Chen, saying China is still a developing country with a large population and a weak economic foundation and productivity has not reached balanced development. Great differences still exist between towns and villages, with social development lagging behind economic development, and various social problems still exist.

Chen appealed for governments to explore more new ways to further promote social management.

This forum was co-sponsored by China National School of Administration and the European Institute of Public Administration. The first forum was held in June 2004 in Beijing.

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2005)