Chengdu City is going to act like Santa Claus and provide a 37.91-million-yuan (US$5.53 million) government handout to its low-income residents.

Rural families in the Sichuan provincial capital on the "five guarantees" list – which provides food, clothing, medical care, housing and burial expenses – and urban residents covered in the policy will each be entitled to a 100-yuan shopping certificate, the Chengdu Civil Affairs Bureau announced yesterday.

Wang Bin, deputy director of the bureau, said the move is one plan to help the needy and increase consumption. Departments in health care, education, culture and tourism will introduce more policies afterwards, Chengdu Business News report today.

The bureau hasn't determined which stores will accept the certificates, but some supermarkets have expressed strong interest in providing the service, according to the report.

Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region provided a 212.46-million-yuan government handout.

The number of Chinese people living in extreme poverty has dropped from 250 million in 1978 to 14.79 million last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics and the State Council Leading Group Office on Poverty Alleviation and Development.

(Shanghai Daily December 12, 2008)