Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao vowed on Friday to step up efforts to meet the basic social security needs of the nation's huge poor underclass amid concerns of a growing stability risk.
"We will move faster to improve the social security system for both urban and rural residents," Wen said in his "state of the nation" address to open the annual session of parliament.
The gathering kicked off with concern mounting over a huge wealth gap and social stability in a country that sees thousands of protests every year - often violent - by those who have missed out on China's boom.
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"We will move faster to build a better social safety net to provide basic security to people and free them from worries," Wen told the 3,000 delegates to the National People's Congress.
"We will not only make the pie of social wealth bigger by developing the economy but also distribute it well on the basis of a rational income distribution system," he added.
Wen also underlined growing official unease with a system known as hukou under which citizens' residency is tied strictly to their hometown.
Free movement of people hindered
The system has come under fire for denying the country's 230 million migrant workers access to the government's social safety net once they leave their hometowns for work in China's cities and coastal economic hubs.
"We will work to extend coverage of social security to rural migrant workers," Wen said, but gave no details.
The government has itself vowed to reform the hukou system. In an unusual joint editorial, 13 major state-controlled newspapers around the country this week called for its abolition, saying it "shackles the people's rights".
China's rural-urban wealth gap was the widest last year since the nation launched its economic transformation three decades ago, according to state media reports this week.
Urban per capita income stood at 17,175 yuan (AU$2,793) in 2009 - more than three times the figure of 5,153 yuan in the countryside.
Wen said the government would push forward plans to expand old-age pension coverage for rural residents and extend worker's compensation coverage to all those injured in the line of work.
A finance ministry report to the rubber-stamp legislature said the government would spend 807.8 billion yuan (AU$131 bn) in areas including education, medical and health care, social security, employment, low-income housing and culture.
It said that was an increase of 65.1 billion yuan, or 8.8 percent.
