City pledges to buy helicopters to fight fires as more high-rises go up

SHANGHAI - This eastern financial hub aims to achieve an 8-percent annual GDP growth rate over the next five years while ensuring residents' incomes keep pace, its mayor said.

The goals were outlined in the draft of the city's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), which is being examined at the two ongoing sessions of the local legislature and political advisory body.

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With coffers fed by 10-percent GDP growth last year, the municipal government will increase local retirement pensions, minimum wages and social welfare, while narrowing wealth gaps, Mayor Han Zheng said in his government work report to the municipal people's congress and political advisory body on Sunday.

He said wage increases and social assistance to the vulnerable will be pegged to price hikes and rising inflationary pressures.

While Shanghai's living standards are relatively high, residents' incomes have declined in proportion to the local GDP, a recent survey found.

The survey, conducted by the Shanghai Committee of the China Democratic League, one of the country's eight democratic parties, said the average local income-to-GDP proportion fell from 41.8 percent in 1990 to 36.4 percent in 2008, while government and company revenues have continued rising.

The city's minimum monthly salary of 1,120 yuan ($170) - 30 percent of the average local salary - is also low compared to the internationally accepted standard, according to which people who receive minimum monthly salaries earn no less than 50 percent of a city's average income.

Lu Wei, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Senior Citizens Foundation and a congress deputy, said retirement pensions in Shanghai are far behind those in Beijing and Guangdong's provincial capital Guangzhou, although Shanghai's cost of living is much higher.

The city will also prepare a trial property tax this year to curb real estate speculation while providing affordable housing for residents, Han also said in the report. He did not reveal the tax rate.

In a separate discussion in the report, the mayor pledged to learn from the Nov 15 blaze last year that charred a 28-story downtown residential building, killing 58.

Han said the government should bear responsibility for vast management loopholes in the city's construction industry. He suggested similar problems exist in other spheres of the government's work.

The mayor said authorities will strengthen supervision and identify safety problems, while improving emergency-response capacities.

A separate report by the city's development and reform commission said the government will purchase large helicopters to better fight high-rise fires.

Shanghai has more than 400 buildings higher than 100 meters. Traditional firefighting methods are ineffective in extinguishing blazes in such structures, the report said.