Shanghai to create 500,000 new jobs: Han

By Lydia Chen  |   2009-1-13  |     ONLINE EDITION

SHANGHAI plans to make jobs its top priority this year by creating 500,000 new positions on the way to maintaining gross domestic product growth of 9 percent, the city mayor told lawmakers today.

The GDP target is lower than last year's estimated growth of 10 percent, Mayor Han Zheng told the city's annual People's Congress meeting that started this morning at Shanghai Exhibition Center.

Han said the government's fiscal budget was expected to jump 6 percent in 2009 while the registered urban unemployment rate would be controlled within 4.5 percent.

The unemployment rate for 2008 was expected to be 4.3 percent, according to previous reports.

Han said the government pledged to create 500,000 new jobs in its focus on employment issues in 2009.

Government subsidies will be offered to companies that are striving to survive the economic slowdown and it will call on employers to avoid job cuts and maintain as many job openings as possible, Han added.

It will also enact more vocational training plans to help more than 150,000 local students who graduate this year to find jobs, Han said.

Shanghai's GDP contracted to 10.3 percent in the first half of last year as the global financial crisis began to take effect. It was the first time since 1992 that the local key economic index had fallen behind the national growth rate which was 10.4 percent from January to June last year.

The city's economy has enjoyed double-digit growth above 10 percent for the past 16 years.

Han told the congress the city would maintain expenditure on environment protection, which is about 3 percent of GDP growth.