Initiatives see passport charges reduced and disaster relief funds given a boost

Several ministry-level departments, including the National Immigration Administration, the central bank and the Ministry of Education, have responded recently to issues of public concern.

Passports and travel passes now cheaper

The fees charged for ordinary passports and travel passes for Hong Kong and Macao were reduced from Monday.

The National Immigration Administration said the fee charged for the issuance of an ordinary passport has been reduced by 40 yuan ($5.80) to 120 yuan, while the fee charged for the issuance of a travel pass for Hong Kong and Macao has been reduced by 20 yuan to 60 yuan.

People whose applications were accepted before Monday will need to pay according to the original standard.

The move is expected to benefit 65 million people every year, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Paper to spell out aid to small businesses

A white paper on financial services for China's small and micro-sized enterprises will be published soon, the central bank said in an online statement.

Compiled by the People's Bank of China and other departments, including the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the white paper will sum up the policies introduced last year to guide financial services for small and micro-sized enterprises and the effects they have yielded in order to better respond to public concerns.

Credit support for small and micro-sized enterprises increased last year and their financing cost fell thanks to better financial policies and support, the statement said.

1.16b yuan given to areas hit by floods, drought

The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Emergency Management allocated 1.16 billion yuan on Thursday to 12 areas hit by floods or drought, the Ministry of Emergency Management said in an online statement.

The recipients include the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and the provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi and Shandong.

The ministries also allocated 160 million yuan to Sichuan, which was hit by earthquakes, to carry out emergency response work.

The new funding is follow-up financial support to provinces affected by the natural disasters. The ministries had already allocated hundreds of millions of yuan to the provinces of Sichuan, Jiangxi and Guangdong and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

The Ministry of Emergency Management has dispatched a number of work units to assist in disaster relief efforts by local authorities.

Smartphone app for information about NGOs

A smartphone application launched by the Ministry of Civil Affairs will share information about NGOs with the public, including their social credit codes and their legal representatives.

People can use the app, available in WeChat, to check whether an NGO is registered with the civil affairs authorities and whether it has been subjected to administrative punishment.

They can also look up whether a charitable organization is eligible for public fundraising.

The app also contains a list of organizations that broke the law and had their registrations revoked by the authorities.

The app shares basic information about more than 830,000 NGOs, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Physical and aesthetic education to be upgraded

The Ministry of Education plans to select about 20 universities and colleges this year to help primary and middle schools in rural areas promote physical and aesthetic education.

Teachers and students from the universities and colleges should design physical and aesthetic courses for rural schools that do not have such classes, including soccer, swimming, martial arts, choral singing, playing musical instruments and dance.

Art groups from the universities and colleges are also encouraged to perform in the rural schools.

Normal universities and colleges of physical education and art are encouraged to apply to join the project.