After Premier Li Keqiang gave the annual Government Work Report, on March 5, describing last year’s performance and the road ahead, the delegation from Heilongjiang province held a plenary session on the work report the following day and covered a wide range of topics, such as people’s livelihood, medical care, urban construction, environmental protection, and education, in the following ways:.

Government support for urban construction

Zhong Jie, a CPPCC member, pointed out how the heating system in urban areas is closely tied to people’s lives and there are many reasons for why room temperatures need to comply with standards in winter time, and aging heat pipes are a problem.

The heating system in Heilongjiang was built in the 1980s and ’90s and is of serious concern because of corrosion and leaks and these, along with explosions have seriously affected daily life. And, since the overall economy is still on a downtrend trend and seriously affected by a global recession, not enough government support has come for renovation projects and the companies that provide the heat, especially private ones, have big problems with funding.

Zhong suggests that the central government increase subsidies to ensure the renovation of the province’s heating network and comments on of the renovation of shantytowns by calling for more financial support from the central government, since the infrastructure in one third of the shantytowns cannot be finished due to lack of funds.

Cheaper drugs through bidding

He Xiaoping, another CPPCC member, has pointed out that the centralized drug procurement system, as one of China’s ways of cutting medical costs, can also ensure drug safety while bringing down artificially high prices.

But, new problems have also emerged; for instance, some people still have to pay high prices for medicines because of a lack of access to cheaper ones. When He looked into this, he found that the pharmaceutical companies are to blame for the “disappearance” of cheap generic alternatives and that, after they competed in lowering prices in a bidding war, they decided the profit margin was too small so they were reluctant to produce more drugs and, at the same time, because of a lack of oversight, some suppliers changed the cheaper drugs a little bit so they could demand a higher price.

He Xiaoping has suggested better regulations on drugs and their approval and greater oversight on drugs. He also calls for an early warning and emergency response mechanism for drug safety as well as a strict review of suppliers in production, financing and distribution.