Database to help boost insurance

China aims to build a database that includes all the eligible people for social insurance to implement targeted beneficiary measures, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Officials will use the latest technology, including big data, to reach those without social insurance and to ensure universal coverage by 2020, according to the ministry's Social Insurance Management Center.

China's social insurance system is the largest in the world. About 900 million people are included in the endowment insurance system, and more than 1.3 billion are covered by medical insurance, according to a statement from the center provided exclusively to China Daily.

The average monthly payment to retired urban employees is more than 2,300 yuan ($335), while the basic endowment insurance, covering the unemployed in both rural and urban areas, is more than 120 yuan.

"No matter whether they are urban or rural residents, which region they are from, what their gender is and what their jobs are, all Chinese citizens have a special endowment insurance relevant to them," the center said.

However, the center said it will be challenging to include the remaining 10 percent in the social endowment insurance system. Those 100 million people are mostly migrant workers in flexible employment, employed in new forms of industry, such as e-commerce or express delivery, or employed by small and medium-sized enterprises.

The ministry launched a four-year campaign aimed at registering all Chinese residents eligible for social insurance into a national database in 2014. The work was expected to be roughly finished by the end of 2017. This year, efforts will be made to include all the info into the database.

While big data and the internet will play a role in locating those not covered, the ministry will also promote data exchanges among its employment-related departments and the Ministry of Public Security, the center said.

Research and investigative tours will be made to reach those employed in new forms of industry to find why they have not been covered by the social endowment insurance and mobilize them to join the system.

The ministry will provide services via internet platforms and mobile terminals to help those not covered join the system and offer tailor-made services to different groups.

"Some citizens are still not proactive in joining the social endowment insurance because of the lack of incentives," the center added.