The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, urges more sound and scientific regulations and law on the nation’s social insurance operation after it sent an inspection team to review the implementation of the Social Insurance Law in recent months.

The inspection team, consisting of 19 members, visited 16 cities and prefectures in six provinces from June to July, including Shanghai, Heilongjiang and Guangdong, to review the implementation of the social insurance law. The team also authorized six provincial NPC standing committees in provinces and cities such as Zhejiang and Chongqing to review the law’s implementation during that period.

The inspection team has noted the progresses that the nation has reached in perfecting the social insurance system but also spotted several problems, according to the latest report it submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for review on Tuesday.

The report said that China has seen the social insurance of pension, work-related injuries, unemployment and childbirth covering increasing population in recent years. As of the end of 2023, China has established the world’s largest social insurance net with about 1.06 billion people covered by basic pension insurance, 1.33 billion by basic healthcare insurance and 240 million by unemployment insurance.

The nation has also tightened supervision over the use of social insurance funds to prevent fraud and appropriation. According to the report, the National Healthcare Security Administration reviewed 802,000 pharmaceutical institutes last year and recovered about 18.7 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) of healthcare insurance-related funds.

However, the inspection team noted some problems such as lower social insurance coverage of flexible employers and companies’ arrears of their employees’ insurance.

The inspection team urged the government to figure out more scientific top-down mechanisms and standards of social insurance implementation, as people may encounter problems of paying social insurance or receiving pensions due to different policies by local authorities.

More lectures and promotion campaigns can be organized for employers, college students, migrant workers and the flexibly employed to help raise their awareness of social insurance and using legal approaches to protect their rights, the report said.

In the report, the inspection team also urged the government to intensify the supervision of the use of social insurance funds to enhance the funds security and sustainability. It suggests strict crackdowns on illegal behaviors of fraud or appropriation of social insurance funds and increasing the punishment of these behaviors.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress approved the Social Insurance Law in 2010, with several articles being amended in 2018

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