CPPCC Shanghai members bring proposals to Beijing

More than 100 CPPCC members from Shanghai have brought their proposals to the annual session of the nation's top political advisory body, which kicked off on Thursday, with issues such as epidemic prevention and control and public health system becoming a major focus this year.

By Tuesday, when they set off for Beijing, the members had planned to file 191 proposals and give eight speeches, according to the CPPCC Shanghai Committee.

Zhang Endi, vice chairman of CPPCC Shanghai Committee, planned to propose improvements to the public health emergency supply system, which is a critical resource during the fight against novel coronavirus. Zhang felt that currently there are still weaknesses in the circulation, transport, storage and sharing of the supply system that need to be perfected.

Zhang said now the storage, transport and management of public health emergency supplies mostly require cooperation of different authorities, and he believes a diversified and scientific model should be set up based on the supplies' characteristics, amount and lifespan.

Zhang further said that an information-sharing platform for emergency supplies can be established for governments and enterprises to get information they need in time and set up supply solutions quickly. With this platform, supplies can be traced and managed over the whole supply chain and the efficiency can be raised with lower transport cost by means like optimizing allocation and simplifying circulation processes.

A national unified emergency plan for the public purchase of emergency supplies and services can also be set up, Zhang said. Collaboration with third-party e-commerce platforms and logistics companies should be strengthened as well to ensure that supplies can be delivered in the fastest and safest way.

Cai Wei, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party — one of China's eight non-communist parties — also paid attention to the shortcomings in the public health safety system that emerged after the novel coronavirus broke out.

In his proposal, he suggested that the nation could reconstitute its public health safety system and integrate the forces of disease prevention and control and health supervision authorities. The legislation of a public health safety law should be sped up and the cooperation between disease prevention and control institutions and hospitals should be enhanced.

The public health clinic centers should strengthen their management and guidance to hospitals at different levels in fields like epidemic prevention and control and bio-safety. Community health service centers should enhance their capabilities in dealing with epidemics and public health emergencies.

He mentioned that labor and employment policies should be carefully designed to tackle labor problems during a pandemic to prevent large-scale layoffs.

Lu Hongbing, vice president of the All China Lawyers Association, noticed conflicts among subdistricts, neighborhood committees, property owners’ committees and property management companies during the pandemic. He plans to make a proposal for setting a community governance model with collaboration from the four sides.

Through such a model, during public health emergencies, neighborhood committees will collect demands from property owners and report them to subdistricts, while property management companies will cooperate with the implementation of epidemic prevention measures.

Zhou Hanmin, vice chairman of CPPCC Shanghai Committee and vice chairman of the Central Committee of the China National Democratic Construction Association, said that with the growing demand for online services like meetings, education and health care in the pandemic, enterprises should be guided to accelerate their digital upgrades to turn the challenge into an opportunity.

He advised the nation to improve its network facilities and lead micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to join the campaign of digitization as well as helping the less advanced regions to form a better economic ecosystem and closely connect to advanced regions via data and analysis.