BEIJING - A national residence permit system should be established to provide better services for the migrant population in China's cities.

Zhou Yongkang, a senior leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said on Friday at a meeting on social management that a system should be set up and implemented at the earliest possible date.

It would cover help with employment, health care services, housing, social security and migrant people's children's education, said Zhou, a Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

These efforts would help to avoid a new discriminatory dual system in cities, he said.

Zhou also called for better treatment for mental patients, HIV carriers and drug addicts as well as better provision in juvenile delinquency cases.