China has pledged to strengthen and stabilize its real estate market, which has been facing challenges. At a media briefing during the country's annual Two Sessions gathering, Beijing announced plans to increase support for housing projects, and make sure new homes are delivered on time to buyers. Additionally, a nationwide renovation plan was unveiled, covering all residential compounds built before 2000. The Two Sessions is China's most important annual political event, where key political, economic, and social policies are agreed. CGTN’s Jen Copestake is there.
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00:00We heard from four key ministers and that included the Housing and Urban Rural Development Minister,
00:04the Minister of Civil Affairs, the Minister of Human Resources and Social Security as well as
00:09the Minister of the National Health Committee. The conference lasted for about two hours and
00:14some of the highlights that we heard included hearing the news that China has achieved an
00:19average life expectancy of 79 years of age. Now that's up 0.4 since 2023 and this rise comes
00:28ahead of a scheduled target that was set in the 14th five-year plan and the Minister of the
00:32National Health Commission said this indicates that the healthy lifestyle of Chinese people
00:37and strategies like the Healthy China initiative are bearing fruit, they're having a positive
00:42impact and improving public health. He said that China now ranks fourth in life expectancy
00:48among 53 middle and high income countries and 10th in the G20. Now in the conference we also
00:54heard plans for policies to provide more stable employment opportunities for young people and
01:00that includes college graduates. It's been a theme we've heard a lot in the two sessions.
01:05China will build an employment friendly development model and improve the efficiency
01:09of matching people with jobs where there are vacancies. The Minister of Human Resources
01:14also called for driving employment through entrepreneurship. Now whether that's through
01:18young people creating entrepreneurship opportunities or through migrant workers
01:22who are returning to hometowns to build businesses. There will be support for older migrant workers
01:28too in training opportunities and increasing income. A big part of the conference focused on
01:34reform for elderly care. This was another highlight. There was a lot said about how to best support
01:39China's aging population going forward in the years ahead and the Minister of Civil Affairs
01:44said that there needs to be institutions for elderly care in the same way that there are
01:47institutions for education, that there's schools, hospitals for medical support and these need to
01:52be developed so that elderly people can have access across the board all over the country
01:57to basic care. The application of information technology in that field was also discussed
02:02so that's things like robotics and the use of artificial intelligence in elderly care.
02:07Yeah and you know this year's two sessions has been placing a strong emphasis on high tech
02:12advancements that are going to enhance people's lives. You've been visiting EV factories, you've
02:18seen some really cutting edge technology, you've seen it firsthand. What can you tell us?
02:27Yes that's right. I mean before we arrived in Beijing to cover the two sessions we traveled
02:31a bit around China. We went to Guangzhou to the GAC car company's factory there. They have built
02:37a brand called ION in 2017 and they have a factory which is called the GAC Intelligent
02:43Networking New Energy Industry Park. So it's not just a factory but indeed facilities for things
02:48like battery research and production, joint ventures with battery and electric drive systems
02:53companies on site and even a battery recycling center and these are all in close proximity.
02:59This is a hallmark of Chinese EV manufacturing to have the supply chain all very close together and
03:04this factory is also extremely environmentally friendly. This is something that we've heard over
03:09and over again at the two sessions that China's emphasizing building manufacturing facilities
03:13that are green. So this assembly line we visited produces zero carbon emissions and it's partly
03:19powered by 85,000 square meters of solar panels on its roof. This is one of China's lighthouse
03:26factories. Now the factories that are called lighthouse are recognized by the World Economic
03:30Forum as having cutting-edge design and the focus is on new energy technologies and green
03:36energy technologies. The assembly line at the GAC ION factory that we saw was fully automated. It
03:41was really impressive running 20 out of 24 hours a day fully flexible so you could have different
03:47models of cars produced at the same time and each car could have thousands of different
03:51customizations on the cars. The line can produce up to 1,200 electric vehicles a day. Now this
03:57model of factory is something that GAC ION wants to promote around the world. Indeed they already
04:01are doing that in Southeast Asia and in Europe they're looking for their first site for a factory
04:07later this year. Now I want to talk about Europe because of course it's very much in the news when
04:11it comes to electric vehicles and China. Coming up on CGTN today and even tomorrow you can watch
04:17our documentary it's called Shocking the System. So we had the opportunity to go and take an in-depth
04:24look into why China is winning the electric vehicle race and whether or not the tariffs that
04:30the EU is imposing on China can do anything to stop their momentum. So we spoke to leaders in
04:35the industry in China, across Europe and we test drove vehicles, we visited factories in China to
04:42see how the manufacturing process works. So you'll get a chance to find out a lot more in an in-depth
04:46way about the processes. You can watch that here on CGTN Europe on the CGTN Europe YouTube channel
04:52and across our social media.