China will extend old-age insurance to its full population, its leaders decided at a key meeting that ended on Thursday.
State-owned capital will be used to augment the existing social security fund, according to a communique released after the four-day Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee.
Nearly 200 million Chinese are yet to be included in the country's old-age insurance scheme, said Yin Weimin, head of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in March.
The communique further vowed that "China will implement the critical illness insurance system in full scale," suggesting that this insurance will also be rolled out to the entire population.
As of the end of September 2014, about 650 million of the 1.3 billion Chinese were covered by critical illness insurance, preventing them from bankruptcy through medical bills.
The communique said China will "hold on to the path of development shared by all," working toward "development for the people, by the people and shared by the entire population."
