Departments and ministries under the State Council, China's cabinet, have responded to a series of public concerns in the past week, including college graduates' employment, the replacement of the business tax with value-added tax and price reform in the medical service.

Sun Jianli, director of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security's Human Resources Market Department, responded on July 6 to public concerns about the project to employ college graduates in grassroots government units. Nine ministries and departments including the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the CPC and Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security have jointly issued an announcement on implementing the third round of the project from 2016 to 2020.

During this five-year period, 125,000 college graduates nationwide will be selected to work in grassroots units in various areas, and the authorities will enhance their cultivation and training of these selected college graduates and increase subsidies to them, in order to enable them to play a more important role.

On July 8, officials of the State Administration of Taxation responded to public concerns online about the new measures to facilitate replacing the business tax with value-added tax. The administration has implemented 20 new measures to promote the third phase of this replacement process.

These measures include launching a pilot analysis of the reform, extending the tax reporting period in July, strengthening guidance on completing application forms, improving the electronic reporting system, increasing tax policy training, promoting cooperation between the national tax authority and local tax authorities and strengthening supervision of taxation service departments, as well as protecting taxpayers' legal interests and rights.

On July 7, officials of the Ministry of Finance responded to public concerns about strengthening internal control and management of government purchases. According to the instructions issued by the ministry, four internal control measures will be enhanced - purchasers, centralized purchasing organizations and supervision authorities will be required to strengthen internal management and supervision; job responsibilities and the chain of command will be clarified; budget management and auditing will be enhanced, and control over key links will be strengthened. The instruction also advanced four safeguarding measures including strengthening leadership, accelerating the establishment of rules and regulations, improving technical support and enhancing supervision of operations.

Ministries and departments including the National Development and Reform Commission, National Health and Family Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance have jointly issued an announcement to push price reform of the medical service. Officials of the National Development and Reform Commission responded to public concerns about the reform on July 6.

According to the officials, by 2017 government pricing will be gradually reduced and price management of the medical service will be improved. Price reform will be carried out in accordance with the ongoing comprehensive reform of public hospitals.

By 2020, a dynamic price adjustment mechanism based on the structural changes of cost and income will be gradually established, they added.