Initiatives rolled out for startups

Programs aimed at migrant workers, students, veterans who return home and better services

The Chinese government announced initiatives on Friday to help migrant workers, veterans and university graduates establish businesses back in their hometowns.

The plans also call for the creation of programs to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation in the nation's western region and rural areas.

Migrant workers who return home to set up a business after accumulating a certain amount of capital, skill and management experience will be entitled to training courses, tax breaks, financial assistance, as well as office and manufacturing space.

Xin Changxing, vice-minister of human resources and social security, said both the grassroots-level service platforms and infrastructure for online and offline operations will be improved. The government will also work to improve Internet services at the county and township levels.

Entrepreneurship parks will also be developed by making full use of existing resources to facilitate business startups for rural migrant workers.

"We will ensure easy movement of entrepreneurship services and social-insurance accounts, gradually establishing a service transfer mechanism among urban and rural areas and communities," Xin said on Friday at a news conference held by the State Council Information Office.

Xin said local governments will buy services from social agents, foster professional agents, and help returning migrant workers with operational problems.

"The new employment policy better integrates entrepreneurship with employment," said He Jingtong, a professor of rural economy at Nankai University in Tianjin.

He said that starting a business has been made easier, and entrepreneurs will have more support.

Eager to create more jobs and stabilize employment, the government will extend financing channels while reducing taxes and fees. Various groups, including scientific researchers, college graduates and the rural labor force, are being encouraged to start their own businesses.

Employees' social insurance will be subsidized for small and medium-sized enterprises that hire college graduates.

The number of college graduates who registered startup businesses at industry and commerce authorities last year was nearly 480,000, up 33 percent from the previous year, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Vice-Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan said encouraging people in these groups to start their own businesses in their hometowns will accelerate the urbanization process, boost quality development, and readjust industrial structures in the underdeveloped central and western areas.

To achieve these goals, the Ministry of Commerce will integrate resources to enhance the ability of rural areas to upgrade their infrastructure facilities and market access channels.

Express delivery companies such as SF Express, YTO Express and China Postal Express and Logistics have built more than 50,000 service centers and depots in rural areas, covering 56.8 percent of the nation's villages and towns.

The Chinese government has pledged to create more than 10 million urban jobs and to ensure that the registered urban unemployment rate does not rise above 4.5 percent this year, according to the Government Work Report unveiled in March.

The proportion of new business owners rose 0.12 percentage point from the country's total employment base in May compared with the figure registered in January, indicating more people who already have jobs, began to open their own business, data released by the NBS shows on Friday.

zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn