(Yicai Global) Jan. 28 -- In 2021, Shanghai plans to create 500,000 new jobs, increase people’s income and offer better social welfare as part of a host of goals to improve the quality of life of its 24-million-plus residents, the city’s mayor said yesterday.

The city will also do more to help college graduates and the jobless find employment, Gong Zheng said. Standards for pensions, subsistence allowances and medical insurance should be increased to build a more effective multi-layered social security system, he said.

The promises regarding elderly care made in the municipal government’s work report must be fulfilled, Gong said. These include building 50 community care centers for senior citizens, 200 canteens and 5,000 beds. The city should also renovate 2,000 beds to care for mentally impaired elderly persons and adapt the environments of 5,000 households to make them more old age-friendly, the mayor said.

Shanghai will continue to upgrade rundown areas in the city center, install elevators in those residential buildings that only have stairs, provide breakfast services to citizens and facilitate access to medical treatment.

A clean environment is of the biggest benefit to people’s lives and Shanghai will continue to strive to improve the municipality’s air quality and river and lake water quality.

The city’s carbon emissions should peak by 2025, five years before the national goal, he said. Shanghai will speed up the optimization of industrial structure, increase the clean and efficient use of energy and promote the construction of a carbon emission trading market.

Editor: Kim Taylor