During the closing meeting of Shenzhen’s annual legislative meeting Friday, local lawmakers voted on 10 key projects aimed at enhancing people’s well-being for this year. These projects will guide the city government in improving the lives of its residents.

Chosen from a list of 12 candidate projects, the selected projects cover a wide range of areas including improving food safety supervision and guarantee, improving health-care services, increasing government-subsidized housing, enhancing basic education quality, creating a child-friendly environment, enhancing elderly care in communities, strengthening diversified employment, optimizing citizens’ travel experience, creating a trustworthy consumption environment, and expanding the coverage of NEV charging services.

One of the projects targeting food safety was highlighted. The city will continue to carry out the food safety assurance project, revise 100 standards for products under the Shenzhen Standard program, and increase 400 new products under the program.

In terms of health-care services, the city aims to expand its medical capacity by adding 8,000 hospital beds, over 35 community clinics, and hiring more than 500 general practitioners. 

Shenzhen also plans to construct 10,000 government-subsidized apartments and allocate 65,000 housing units in order to guarantee an adequate supply of government-subsidized housing. 

The city will construct, refurbish, or expand 130 kindergartens, primary schools, and middle schools. 

In terms of enhancing early childhood education quality, Shenzhen aims to establish classes for children 2 to 3 years old and increase the number of admissions by 22,000. Additionally, the city plans to build 40 nursery rooms in parks and renovate and expand both indoor and outdoor spaces for children's activities. 

The city seeks to promote social initiatives in elder care services by adding 800 beds in service institutions and establishing 23 nursing homes for senior citizens. 

When it comes to employment, the city plans to create a minimum of 180,000 job opportunities, offer employment guidance to new graduates, provide up to seven days of free accommodation for new graduates, and provide skill training for 16,000 workers.

“I’m glad to see that resident-focused fields such as health care and employment have been selected, which signifies the city government's dedication to improving people's well-being,” lawmaker Liu Dequan said. He added that the chosen projects could propel the government to better serve its people.