IN BRIEF

Commerce

Program to help spur spending

The Ministry of Commerce launched a month-long consumption stimulus program on April 2 in a bid to boost domestic demand and offset the impact of declining exports.

Stimulating domestic consumption is a long-term goal and is the most important task for the ministry this year, according to Fang Aiqing, assistant commerce minister.

More than 80,000 national commercial enterprises are set to join the program. City malls and restaurants are also poised to boost consumer demand, said a statement from the ministry. The program will end on May 4, three days after Labor Day.

The consumption stimulus is aimed at potential customers and to develop demand, said Fang.

Education

Linguistic skills a capital idea

Over 700 foreign language-training institutions have been set up in Beijing to encourage people to learn another language, according to the Organizing Committee of Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program.

In addition, the government has developed lectures popularizing foreign languages and introducing other cultures to enable people to get involved in learning another language.

"The capital is becoming a more international city," Xiang Ping, deputy director of the committee, said during the 10th anniversary of the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program.

According to the committee, more than 5.5 million people in the city, about 35 percent of the city's permanent resident population, were capable of understanding another language by 2008, almost double the figure in 2002.

Health

Diseases threaten growth

China, the world's biggest cigarette market, may suffer slower economic growth because of cancer and other chronic diseases that are hurting the labor force, Minister of Health Chen Zhu said.

Non-communicable diseases that cause prolonged sickness are responsible for four out of five deaths in China, compared with about 63 percent globally, and absorb about 70 percent of the nation's health spending, Chen said in an interview on April 2. Fighting the threat requires tighter scrutiny of the tobacco industry, linked to over 1 million deaths in China, he said.

The country now has more than 90 million diabetes and 120 million chronic kidney disease sufferers - the most in the world.

Society

Fuel costs hamper cremation

Shanghai's funeral homes say they have lost money when cremating bodies in recent years because of an increase in diesel prices.

The relatively low cremation fees, which haven't changed in 17 years, have forced the industry to charge more for related services to make up for those losses, an industry insider said.

Cao Baofu, deputy director of Shanghai's Yishan Funeral Home, said it incurs a loss of about 260 yuan ($41; 31 euros) on average to cremate a corpse, because the Shanghai price bureau set the standard charge for cremation at 180 yuan as early as 1995, while the average cost, taking into account labor costs, electricity, machine depreciation and - most importantly - diesel fuel prices, have increased about nine times in 17 years to 440 yuan.

China Daily