A pilot scheme to provide medical insurance for migrant workers has been started by the Shenzhen city government.

Conducted by the labor and social security bureau and the public health bureau, the program aims to cover all Shenzhen's migrant laborers.

The pilot scheme involves 60,000 people in the sub-districts of Buji, Longgang, Longhua and Shajing.

Under the insurance scheme, a migrant worker will pay four yuan (US$0.48) a month, with eight yuan to come from the employer, for basic cover at clinics and hospitals. The maximum cover for a migrant worker will be 60,000 yuan.

"We set the insurance premium at 12 yuan to include as many as migrant workers as we can," said Guan Lingen, director-general of the labor and social security bureau.

Statistics show that by the end of last year, less than 1.5 million migrant workers in Shenzhen had been covered by medical insurance, about 25 percent of the total. With proposals from 75 deputies to the municipal people's congress and promoted by the two municipal bureaus, the program was created based on an insurance model targeting migrant workers that had been in use for some time in Buji Sub-district, an industrial area in Bao'an District.

Two migrant workers covered by the medical insurance have a physical examination at a hospital in Buji Sub-district on Tuesday, the first day the insurance came into effect.

Editor: Catherine