Kudos to pension plan

We welcome the State Council's decision to expand a new rural social pension system to 10 percent of the country's counties this year. For, it will not only help narrow the social welfare gap between urban and rural areas but also boost rural consumption, only helping our fight against the current economic recession.

With a rural population of more than 700 million, China still has a long way to go to establish a social security net in the vast countryside to match that for its urban residents.

It was reported that only 56 million rural residents had joined pension programs by the end of 2008 while about 218.91 million city dwellers were covered by an urban basic pension insurance system.