News milk
China wants more children and helps its own dairy industry
The Chinese state is opening its purse strings on a large scale to increase the number of births and is also stimulating its own child nutrition industry with food stamps, state news agency Xinhua reported.
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The reason is growing concern among the government about the decline in the population. For the third consecutive year, China has fewer people than the year before. In addition, the number of marriages has fallen by 20% compared to the average of previous years. Permanent relationships are ending and many young people find raising children too expensive.
The government does not want to sit idle and watch this. That is why a national program has been rolled out to get the birth rate back up. Since 2021, families are even allowed to have up to three children, but this option is rarely used.
That is why an incentive program is now being rolled out in more than twenty provinces. Subsidized childcare is being made available
and young mothers are given free milk. In return, they receive an electronic voucher worth 3.000 yuan, or about €380, which they can redeem at Yili or Mengniu to buy baby food.
And that's not all, because the first child earns a one-time bonus of 10.000 yuan, which is about €1.275. That's almost a quarter of the average annual income in China, but in the more remote regions, where the program is being rolled out first, much more. The second child earns more: 10.000 yuan for five years. The third child even more: 10.000 yuan per year for ten years.
The main goal is to ensure that in the future, not too small a group of young people will have to care for an increasingly graying mass of older Chinese. In passing, the local dairy industry benefits from the subsidy program.