By Qiu Hong, Assistant Minister of Commerce
April 21, 2008
Dear guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning. It’s my great pleasure to join you in Chongqing for the China-Canada Workshop on Improving the Conditions for Migrant Workers in China. Let me start by extending my warmest congratulations on the holding of the workshop and my sincere welcome to the delegates and friends from both home and abroad.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Migrant workers emerged as a new source of labour in the process of China’s reform and opening up, industrialization and urbanization. China currently has a total migrant worker population of 200 million. They are widely found in every sector of the national economy and are making major contributions to urban prosperity, rural development and modernization. As industrialization and urbanization accelerate in China, more and more excess labour will migrate from the countryside to cities. The migration of these workers, their livelihood and development are among major challenges China has to address for the coming period of time.
Migrant workers are vast in number. Addressing migrant worker issues will profoundly increase agricultural productivity, farmers’ income and rural prosperity. It is also relevant to the advancement of industrialization, urbanization and modernization in China and to the great cause of building a moderately well-off society, a socialist harmonious society.
In recent years, the Chinese government has directed great importance to migrant worker issues and has crafted a host of policy measures aimed at protecting the rights and interests of migrant workers and improving their working conditions. In 2006, the State Council promulgated the Opinions of the State Council on Addressing Migrant Worker Issues, which prescribed the guidelines, principles and policy actions for improving migrant worker status and carried great significance for protecting migrant workers’ rights and interests, further improving their working conditions, directing a reasonable and orderly flow of excess rural labour, pressing ahead with building a new socialist countryside and fostering sound progress on industrialization, urbanization and modernization with Chinese characteristic. At the same time, a lot of efforts have also been made by different localities and departments. Useful attempts and experiments were conducted with notable results. But still some formidable challenges with regard to migrant workers remain to be tackled. These challenges mainly include low wage level and default payout, long working hours, poor safety conditions, inadequate access to social security, high incidence of job-related diseases and casualties. Other challenges include training and job creation, schooling for migrant workers’ children and their living conditions. Protecting the rights and interests of migrant workers, among other things, is a pronounced issue that needs to be tackled in the near term.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Labour migration from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors, from rural to urban areas is an inevitable trend in the process of industrialization and urbanization. It creates a major challenge for China moving toward modernization, a common challenge that has confronted or will confront many other countries in the process of development.
Developed countries and relevant international agencies have conducted long-running research in this field and accumulated a wealth of experience. Relevant domestic departments and research institutes have also carried out extensive studies and discussions.
In order to draw on international experience and step up international exchanges, we are holding this Canada-China Workshop on Improving the Conditions for Migrant Workers in China. With a purpose of facilitating the materialization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we have invited seasoned experts from home and abroad on urbanization, social security reform, labour market, legal aid, protection of migrant workers’ rights and interests and occupational health and safety to discuss “Challenges Facing Migrant Workers in China” and “Social Security Reforms for Migrant Workers”. In this way, I hope we can share the experience and fruits of various countries, come up with policy recommendations and pass on the findings of the workshop to competent authorities for reference.
Choosing Chongqing as the host city for this workshop is of particular importance. For one thing, Chongqing, with its large population of migrant workers, has a strenuous task to relocate the labour forces; and for another it has done a lot in trying to balance urban-rural development and address issues related to migrant workers. Chongqing is the first city in China to have a “Migrant Worker Day” (first Sunday of November) and to have raised the issues of migrant workers in cities high on its agenda. Its pragmatic work has been echoed throughout the nation.
At the same time, in order to support Chongqing’s pilot programme in addressing migrant workers issues, the Ministry of Commerce of China (MOFCOM) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Occupational Health and Safety of Migrant Workers in September 2007. The project will be executed in Chongqing with a term of 5 years. CIDA will commit 5 million Canadian dollars and the Chinese side 10 million RMB. China and Canada will conduct cooperation and exchanges on rights-protection for migrant workers. This workshop provides an excellent setting for us to strengthen international cooperation on issues facing migrant workers. We encourage other countries and international agencies to continue building broad and practical partnerships with their counterparts in Chongqing.
I hope that in the following one and a half days, experts and scholars will speak their minds and offer suggestions to help China with the issues. We hope that this workshop will yield great results with our joint efforts. Finally, on behalf of MOFCOM, one of the co-hosts, I would like to thank CIDA and the Canadian Embassy in China for putting this workshop together and for their support to our development cooperation. My thanks also go to the delegates and experts from home and abroad, Chongqing Municipal Government and Chongqing Commission of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (COFTEC).
I wish this workshop a great success.
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