China's State Council made arrangements Tuesday on reducing social insurance fee rates, clarified specific supporting measures and decided¹ on the year's priorities for improving the business environment.

 

中国国务院周二做出安排，降低社会保险费率，明确具体配套措施并决定今年改善商务环境的优先事项。

 

The decisions were made at a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier² Li Keqiang in an effort to unlock market vitality³.

 

According to the government work report delivered to the annual national legislative⁴ session earlier this month, China will cut the share of enterprise contributions to urban workers' basic old-age insurance from 20 percent to 16 percent, starting from May 1.

 

To meet the requirement, the meeting required local governments to reexamine and lower the upper- and lower-limits of the social insurance base and extend the policy of reducing the premium⁵ rates for unemployment and work-related injury insurances for one more year, to April 2020.

 

The meeting prohibited local governments taking any measure that may increase the payment burden of small and micro enterprises and banned forced payment on arrearage⁶ without prior approval.

 

Old-age pensions must be timely and paid in full, the meeting said.

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