“The people’s longing for a good life is what we are fighting for,” Xi Jinping declared when new CPC leaders met the press in November, 2012.

Over the past five years, the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping as the core has taken numerous measures to ensure and improve people’s livelihood. What changes have these measures brought about in people’s lives? What aspirations do they have? Let’s hear the voice of the people. 

Major parks in Beijing are preparing for the upcoming National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays.

Eleven parks, plus the Museum of Chinese Gardens and Landscape Architecture, in Beijing have been decorated with around 1.6 million potted flowers of 150 different species, according to Beijing Municipal Administration Center of Parks.

The floral displays cover more than 100,000 square meters and reflect different themes, symbolizing a thriving and prosperous country.

For example, Beihai Park in downtown Beijing has set up an exhibit of plants arranged and pruned in the shape of two Beijing swifts.

National Day is on Oct. 1 and is celebrated with a week-long holiday. while Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Oct. 4 this year.

Visiting parks to admire flowers is a common National Day activity for Beijing residents.

A 17-meter-tall display in the shape of a flower basket has been placed at the center of Tiananmen Square to mark the upcoming holidays.

The basket with a diameter of 50 meters holds artificial flowers and fruits such as persimmons, pomegranates, apples, peonies and Chinese roses.

According to the Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry, similar baskets have appeared at the center of the square for China’s National Day holiday since 2011.

According to forecasts by the China National Tourism Administration, around 710 million trips will be made from Oct. 1 to 8, with national tourism revenue reaching 590 billion yuan (about 90 billion U.S. dollars), up 10 percent and 12.2 percent respectively from the same period last year.

New industries and businesses will be governed in a prudent way to help expand employment as China places job creation at the top of its agenda amid downward pressure on growth.

Job creation is priority as entrepreneurship and innovation seen as best options to provide key groups with opportunities.

That was one of the decisions made at a State Council executive meeting, which was presided over by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday. The meeting sought to encourage mass entrepreneurship and innovation to create employment opportunities and help key groups find jobs, said a statement issued after the meeting.

Supportive policies were reiterated at the meeting while key groups, such as college graduates, migrant workers and workers transferred from overcapacity cuts, will be given favorable policies to find work, the statement said.

Professional and market-oriented innovation spaces and demonstration zones should be promoted to provide support to high-level talent to start their businesses and upgrade traditional industries, the statement said, adding that more jobs should be created when new economic drivers are cultivated to offer more positions.

Employment is one of the most vital economic indicators for the premier and the central government. A special meeting was convened by the State Council in May last year to ensure these key groups find new jobs.

Facing downward pressure on economic growth in recent years, China has placed employment as a top priority and taken more proactive policies, which will help the country create more than 13 million jobs in urban areas each year, the statement said.

There is a huge demand for jobs but employment is also facing many structural problems, which calls for more intensified efforts to combat unemployment, it said.

Mass entrepreneurship and innovation should be encouraged to create jobs, while the country will roll out more measures to support migrant workers in starting their own businesses in their hometowns, the statement said.

Economic growth and employment can complement each other, because a stabilizing economy can support employment while full employment, in return, can boost economic restructuring and industrial upgrading, the premier told the meeting.

New businesses are emerging and the government should take a prudent path to manage these new economic drivers that can also contribute to an increasing number of employment opportunities, the premier said.

“People will live a well-off life when most people in this country have jobs and income. The country will be stronger as well,” he added.

The first eight months saw more than 10 million jobs created for urban residents, according to figures by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

The unemployment rate in urban areas is also at a record low, which is accredited by experts to the contribution of new industries and businesses.

Industrial restructuring and upgrading has provided new momentum for employment, especially the service sector that made up 43.5 percent of the country’s GDP last year, said Li Chang’an, a professor of public management at the University of International Business and Economics.

New industries, such as internet-based sectors, are new sources for job seekers with millions of people making a living working for these industries, he said.

For example, express delivery services employ more than 2.6 million people around the country, thanks to thriving online shopping, he added.

Meanwhile, new industries offer alternatives to help disadvantaged groups. Last year, 160,000 people with disabilities ran online shops at Taobao.com to earn 12.4 billion yuan ($1.98 billion) in revenue, according to a report jointly released by the China Disabled Persons’ Federation and Alibaba Group.

People with disabilities are sometimes wrongly believed to be lacking the skills to make money, said Xia Xueluan, a professor of sociology at Sanya University in Hainan province.

“But online shopping has made a difference for them and they should be shown respect to be brave enough to embrace the new opportunities,” Xia said.

New industries and jobs should be given more time to develop and mature, which demands governmental support such as that decided at Wednesday’s meeting, Xia added.

In addition, the meeting also decided to improve vocational education that can meet new demands for the job market, while labor and social security policies should keep in line with the changing labor market. Supervision will be further reinforced over the labor market and the protection of legitimate rights for job seekers.

New industries and businesses will be governed in a prudent way to help expand employment as China places job creation at the top of its agenda amid downward pressure on growth.

Job creation is priority as entrepreneurship and innovation seen as best options to provide key groups with opportunities.

That was one of the decisions made at a State Council executive meeting, which was presided over by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday. The meeting sought to encourage mass entrepreneurship and innovation to create employment opportunities and help key groups find jobs, said a statement issued after the meeting.

Supportive policies were reiterated at the meeting while key groups, such as college graduates, migrant workers and workers transferred from overcapacity cuts, will be given favorable policies to find work, the statement said.

Professional and market-oriented innovation spaces and demonstration zones should be promoted to provide support to high-level talent to start their businesses and upgrade traditional industries, the statement said, adding that more jobs should be created when new economic drivers are cultivated to offer more positions.

Employment is one of the most vital economic indicators for the premier and the central government. A special meeting was convened by the State Council in May last year to ensure these key groups find new jobs.

Facing downward pressure on economic growth in recent years, China has placed employment as a top priority and taken more proactive policies, which will help the country create more than 13 million jobs in urban areas each year, the statement said.

There is a huge demand for jobs but employment is also facing many structural problems, which calls for more intensified efforts to combat unemployment, it said.

Mass entrepreneurship and innovation should be encouraged to create jobs, while the country will roll out more measures to support migrant workers in starting their own businesses in their hometowns, the statement said.

Economic growth and employment can complement each other, because a stabilizing economy can support employment while full employment, in return, can boost economic restructuring and industrial upgrading, the premier told the meeting.

New businesses are emerging and the government should take a prudent path to manage these new economic drivers that can also contribute to an increasing number of employment opportunities, the premier said.

“People will live a well-off life when most people in this country have jobs and income. The country will be stronger as well,” he added.

The first eight months saw more than 10 million jobs created for urban residents, according to figures by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

The unemployment rate in urban areas is also at a record low, which is accredited by experts to the contribution of new industries and businesses.

Industrial restructuring and upgrading has provided new momentum for employment, especially the service sector that made up 43.5 percent of the country’s GDP last year, said Li Chang’an, a professor of public management at the University of International Business and Economics.

New industries, such as internet-based sectors, are new sources for job seekers with millions of people making a living working for these industries, he said.

For example, express delivery services employ more than 2.6 million people around the country, thanks to thriving online shopping, he added.

Meanwhile, new industries offer alternatives to help disadvantaged groups. Last year, 160,000 people with disabilities ran online shops at Taobao.com to earn 12.4 billion yuan ($1.98 billion) in revenue, according to a report jointly released by the China Disabled Persons’ Federation and Alibaba Group.

People with disabilities are sometimes wrongly believed to be lacking the skills to make money, said Xia Xueluan, a professor of sociology at Sanya University in Hainan province.

“But online shopping has made a difference for them and they should be shown respect to be brave enough to embrace the new opportunities,” Xia said.

New industries and jobs should be given more time to develop and mature, which demands governmental support such as that decided at Wednesday’s meeting, Xia added.

In addition, the meeting also decided to improve vocational education that can meet new demands for the job market, while labor and social security policies should keep in line with the changing labor market. Supervision will be further reinforced over the labor market and the protection of legitimate rights for job seekers.

A fugitive suspected of contract fraud returned to China on Monday and turned himself in, according to the country’s top watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Xu Xuewei, who was No 91 in the list of China’s top 100 overseas fugitives, is the 46th to return.

Xu was the controller of a science and technology company and a chemical fiber company based in Jiangyin, Jiangsu province. He fled to the United States in November 2012, the CCDI said.

Xu is the latest fugitive so far whose return is partly due to the red notice system of the International Criminal Police Organization, commonly known as Interpol.

Chiefs of police and security experts from around the world will gather at Interpol’s 86th General Assembly in Beijing from Tuesday to Friday.

Key topics during the annual event include ensuring that real-time data is in the hands of front-line officers and that cooperation is achieved across various agencies to combat terrorism and cybercrime and to catch international fugitives.

Interpol enables police in 190 member countries to work together to fight international crime. Each of the member countries maintains a national central bureau staffed by local law enforcement officials who carry out investigations and make arrests.

As an Interpol member country, China has stepped up efforts to help the organization collect information on foreign terrorist fighters. Last year, it placed 2 million pieces of information on stolen and lost Chinese identification documents into Interpol’s database. The data are updated monthly, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

Interpol, the world’s largest international police organization, uses a notice system to issue international requests for cooperation or alerts allowing police in member countries to share critical crime-related information.

It issues red notices – the most serious of its eight types of notices – when a subject is wanted by national jurisdictions for prosecution or to serve a sentence based on an arrest warrant or court decision.

Interpol will assist national police forces in identifying and locating such fugitives with a view toward their arrest and extradition, or similar lawful action. The notice is not itself an international arrest warrant.

In 2016, China submitted 612 red notice requests to Interpol. Of those, 230 were published, the ministry said. The Chinese police handled 2,542 investigative requests from foreign police forces that were transmitted via Interpol in 2016, an increase of 140 percent over 2015.

At the organization’s annual general assembly in 2016, Meng Hongwei, deputy director of the ministry, was elected as the president of the organization, which is headquartered in Lyon, France.