Visitors examine flowers at a national-level agricultural exhibition hall in Daicun village in Lanling, Shandong province. [Photo/China Daily]

The province of Shandong has made significant achievements in improving people's livelihoods during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20). 

Over the past five years, the province has adhered to the people-centered development philosophy, increased spending on people's wellbeing year after year, and kept the proportion of spending on people's livelihoods at around 80 percent of government financial funds, according to local officials. 

During this period, the provincial expenditure on education reached 1 trillion yuan ($153.1 billion), ranking first in China. The province has constructed, renovated and expanded nearly 16,000 kindergartens and 4,064 primary and secondary schools.

A total of 93 billion yuan has been spent on higher education, with an average of 19,000 yuan allocated for each undergraduate student.

Employment is essential to people's livelihoods. Over the past five years, Shandong has distributed a total of 6.74 billion yuan to guarantee jobs, benefiting 22.39 million employees.

This year, to help enterprises withstand the impacts of the epidemic and stabilize employment, Shandong cut corporate contributions to the old-age pension, unemployment and workplace safety insurance funds by at least 90 billion yuan.

Support for basic elderly care and basic health care has also been strengthened. 

Besides rebuilding more than 2.55 million housing units in rundown urban areas, 7,700 old urban residential communities and 1.9 million dilapidated rural houses were also renovated. Urban and rural living standards have continued to rise.