China will step up reform to support innovation by removing barriers to entrepreneurship and innovation.

The decision was made at a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday.

The meeting decided that the government will roll out a host of reform measures that have been piloted in eight areas, including the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Shanghai and the Pearl River Delta, since June 2016.

Eligible foreign students with academic background equal to or above master’s degree could apply for work permit or work-related residence permit. The one-stop application and issuance of work permits for foreign experts will also be made available nationwide.

The meeting also decided to pilot a program in the aforementioned eight areas that allows the foreign experts to apply for permanent residence if their income, tax payment and duration of work in China meet a certain standard.

Chinese leaders have stressed the importance of the innovation-driven development strategy on multiple occasions.

President Xi Jinping said a systematic, comprehensive and coordinated reform should be piloted with innovation-driven development as the target, innovation in science and technology at the core and the removal of systematic and institutional barriers as the main focus of efforts.

Premier Li Keqiang called for major progress in systematic and institutional innovation, with focus on breaking the fragmentation in innovation resources allocation.

“We must give full play to the role of innovation in spurring entrepreneurship and employment, and speed up the transformation of innovation into real productivity,” he said.

The meeting on Wednesday decided to enhance the support to the innovation of SMEs and micro enterprises with more targeted measures. One-stop investment and financing information service for SMEs and the pledge for patent right associated with loans, insurance and risk compensation from the finance will be made available nationwide.

The protection of intellectual property rights will be taken to further heights, with measures to better safeguard legitimate rights of innovators and safeguard their legitimate earnings set to be promoted nationwide.

Such measures include the one-stop service for patent examination, rights protection and verification, the innovation-oriented evaluation and incentive scheme within state-owned enterprises, and flexible remuneration regimes in colleges and research institutes to attract high-calibre talents or talents in urgent need.

“We need to create a good environment for the innovation, which can also provide lasting support to the buoyant momentum of the economy. Innovation-driven development relies on the adjustment in industry and product structure and the transformation in model of development,” Li said.

The meeting on Wednesday has also called for local offices of the State Administration of Taxation and local taxation bureaus to further integrate their resources and provide one-stop services.

“We need to create a fair and unprejudiced environment for market competition and enable social creativity to blossom in full,” he said.

“Efforts in cutting red tape, streamlining government function and enhancing compliance oversight over the years have paid off. We need to keep pushing it forward without any complacency, and foster market development with the help of innovation,” he said.

The premier asked government departments to build on their own expertise and render more enabling service to innovation.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]China has completed verification of the country’s seawater warning levels, according to the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) Wednesday.

A landslide buried nine people in northwest China’s Qinghai Province on Wednesday, according to local authorities.

Rescuers have found one body and two injured who have been sent to hospital. They continue to search for the other six.

The landslide occurred at around 4:30 a.m. in a village in Qinghai’s Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

More than 600 rescue workers are at the site. They have evacuated around 90 people from 17 farming households and about 1,200 cattle.

The landslide has also blocked a national highway and a river.

More students in China are choosing veterinary medicine as a career thanks to rising salaries and the growing demand for animal care, according to industry sources.

Veterinarians perform an ultrasound test on a dog in May at a pet hospital in Shenyang, Liaoning province. [Photo/China Daily]

Up to 10,000 students graduate with majors in the field every year in China, but the country is still short more than 1 million vets, said Xiong Fuqiang, deputy Party chief of Nanjing Agricultural University’s veterinary medicine school.

“Few students, especially female students, wanted to become vets in the past due to a heavy workload, low salary and bad working environment. But we have had good applicants in the past two years, and more than 60 percent of them are female.”

He said that the average starting salary for veterinary graduates is 4,000 yuan ($606) a month, and in three years their earnings can surpass 10,000 yuan, higher than the salaries of many other majors.

Zhao Yanbin, vice-president of the school, said more Chinese families are willing to spend money on their pets, including expensive medical treatment.

“Animals share more than 90 percent of the same diseases with people. They also have diabetes, heart disease and liver failure,” he said. But Zhao said medical expenses for pets－which are subject to less regulation－”can be double those for people.”

An MRI for pets can cost 2,500 to 3,000 yuan, while dialysis costs about 10,000 yuan.

Xiong said Nanjing, with 8 million people, had almost no pet hospitals before 2006, but now it has more than 100. He estimated the pet care market in China will keep increasing by 30 to 35 percent yearly.

“A small pet hospital, which has fewer than 10 employees, can make more than 10 million yuan a year,” he said. “A pet hospital affiliated with our university receives at least 40 pets a day.”

Zhang Fuhong, 39, a veterinarian who graduated from Shandong Agricultural University, started his professional career in 2012 and now owns a pet hospital in Liaocheng.

“It’s not a very respectable job in many people’s eyes,” Zhang said. “But it’s very easy to find a job if you study to be a veterinarian.”

Xiong said some veterinary medicine graduates don’t end up providing direct medical services, instead opting for jobs as civil servants or veterinary medicine researchers, aggravating the country’s shortage of veterinarians.

“Compared with doctors for people, veterinarians need to treat different kinds of animals and a wide variety of diseases,” Xiong said. “To some extent, they must have more professional knowledge and need more practice.”

He said that veterinary medicine schools in the country should be equipped with more laboratory equipment and students should have a chance to gain more clinical experience to help ease the shortage.

The demand for practitioners shows no signs of slowing.

The number of pets in China has increased by 12 percent every year for 10 years, Beijing Youth Daily reported in March. China has become the world’s third-largest pet market, just behind the United States and Japan, with the sales of supplies for dogs and cats reaching 172 billion yuan in 2016.

Staff members at Shanghai medical institutions should keep detailed records on the physical condition and medical treatment of patients who may be victims of domestic abuse, the city’s health authorities said.

“If evidence of family violence is found during treatment, staff members should take prompt action, arrange for security personnel to isolate the person and report the incident to the police,” the Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission said in a recent notice.

“Medical staff members should actively work with the police to collect related medical documents,” said the notice, which was published on Aug 22.

If cases are not reported and lead to serious consequences, the person directly responsible may face punishment, it said.

Earlier this month, a netizen uploaded a video showing a man beating his father in a hospital.

According to the online news portal The Paper, the father, 86, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and had been in the hospital since Aug 11. The man often hit his father in the face, kicked his legs or stabbed his mouth with a spoon handle, the report said.

“Every one will become old one day. It’s absolutely unacceptable to see a man treat his old father in such a rude and violent way,” an anonymous netizen said.

Many netizens said the son should be severely punished for his behavior. Police said he has been detained for 10 days and was fined 500 yuan ($76). His father was taken care of by other family members.

The health and family planning commission also required local medical institutions to strengthen public education and improve awareness about family violence.