On December 23, the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress held the sixth session and reviewed such bills as the Draft Resolution on the Adjustment and Improvement of the Birth Policy, which had been put before the committee for review by the State Council. Local governments were required to take into account their own actual situation and determine the specific date when the policy of allowing married couples to have two children if one of the parents is a single child would be implemented by revising local regulations on the part of the provincial people’s congress or its standing committees or formulate new regulations for that purpose so that the implementation of this policy would have a legal basis. On December 18, the NHFPC and four other ministries or commissions issued the Circular on Further Improving Assistance for the Neediest Households in Family Planning, which was designed to intensify financial aid to the neediest households in family planning and carry out social care activities on an extensive basis.

4．Public health emergencies such as the epidemic of H7N9 bird flu were appropriately dealt with. Ten years after the great victory in fighting against the epidemic of SARS, the public health emergency preparedness and response system in China is now characterized by the administrative mechanism for public health emergencies at the levels of the central government and local governments, the inter-ministerial synergy led by the NHFPC in public health emergency response and a series of laws and regulations and routine response plans. Efforts were made to accelerate the construction of the Public Health Emergency Command Decision Making System, which was comprehensively upgraded in terms of response speed, site disposal, information management and self-protection. In March 2013, three cases of H7N9 bird flu were reported in Shanghai and Anhui. The Chinese government immediately launched the inter-departmental and inter-regional joint prevention and joint control mechanism and made great efforts to do a good job in epidemic analysis, the control of source of infection, early diagnosis and early treatment, and the tracing of the origin of the epidemic. By sticking to the principle of transparency, the Chinese government released timely precise information on the epidemic and the prevention and control efforts, strengthened international cooperation and effectively kept the epidemic under control, which won the recognition and affirmation of the general public and the international community. The WHO said that “China’s response is good enough to serve as a model.”