A night view of Jinan, capital of East China's Shandong province [Photo/Jinan Daily]

People's livelihood in Jinan has made great progress since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, said Liu Qiang, Party secretary of Jinan at a news conference on Sept 27.

Over the past 10 years, the city has increased investment in education, employment, medical care, elder care, housing and social assistance. Spending on people's livelihoods accounted for 79.8 percent of the city's fiscal expenditure in 2021, 22.2 percentage points higher than that in 2012.

In the last decade, all of the 211,300 registered poor residents in Jinan were lifted out of poverty and 1.82 million new urban jobs have been created. In 2021, the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents reached 57,400 yuan ($8,066) and 22,600 yuan, respectively, which were 1.76 and 2.15 times the figures in 2012.

Furthermore, a total of 1,268 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens were built, renovated or expanded. Jinan now has a total of 52 colleges and universities, and the total number of health institutions sits at 7,530.

The past decade also saw social security system in Jinan expand with the city's basic medical insurance coverage rate exceeding 97 percent, and 3,350 service facilities of various types for the elderly have been built.

Due to the government's dedication to protecting the environment, the concentration of PM2.5, the most important benchmark of air quality, has dropped by 61.2 percent in Jinan, and from 2012 to 2021, the number of days with good air quality in the city increased by 106 percent, making the city more livable for its residents.