Nearly 55,800 jobs were created in Zhanjiang by the end of September, nearly 80 percent of the goal in 18 major projects to improve residents' livelihood set out in the city government's annual work report.

Free technical training was provided to more than 32,000 rural laborers in the city in the first three quarters of the year.

Progress on the 18 projects was reported at a meeting of the standing committee of the city's people's congress last month.

Development began on 65 human resource and social security initiatives in townships and communities.

Work started on all 21 planned projects for providing safe drinking water to rural residents and has already benefited 249,000 people.

Improvements were made on 763 kilometers of rural roads at a 258 million yuan ($41.4 million) investment.

Preliminary work began on 10 township healthcare centers that will require an average investment of 1 million yuan each.

The construction started on 18 rural nursery homes, with 12 completed.

Renovation began on 11,433 rural homes with low-income residents. Thirty-eight subsidized housing projects were completed, benefiting 4,291 families.

Work started on relocation of all 1,056 villagers in 33 poor villages.

A total of 140 bargain shops were built, with work underway on 14 farming sites and five frozen produce centers.

Work is underway on 89 of the planned 172 school improvement projects, with 12 projects on secondary vocational schools completed.

Improvements to the Beiqiao, Chikan and Nanliu rivers are underway.

Forty-two wet markets were renovated, more than originally planned.

The Zhanjiang government spent nearly 12.6 billion yuan, 17 percent more than the previous year, in improving people's livelihoods in 2011.

The local government aims to expand forest coverage in the city from 28.5 percent to more than 30 percent, while increasing urban sewage treatment rate to 90 percent of all effluent and reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 17 percent by 2016.

Urban air quality should continue to rank among the top among the key environmental protection cities in the country, according to the government's work report.

liwenfang@chinadaily.com.cn