Progress has been made in pilot work for cooperative health care in rural areas, said Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi Saturday in Beijing.

Rural residents are enjoying better health care services, lower costs and improved medical facilities, said Wu at a two-day national meeting on rural cooperative health care that ended here Saturday.

China plans to set up a cooperative health care network by 2010 to enable its 900 million rural residents to enjoy basic medical care.

Each province or autonomous region picked out two or three counties on trial for the new network, which began in July 2003.

The new network operates by building a foundation with funds mainly from the central government, local government and farmers themselves. Farmers recruited into the network will have part of their medical care paid by the network foundation.

However, there are still problems, Wu said, adding that not all local authorities well implemented the policy set by the central government. And a number of pilot counties have not established a reasonable mechanism for collecting funds from farmers. Meanwhile, some local cooperative medical care funds have not been used in a proper way, she said.

She urged local governments and officials to solve the existing problems and improve the pilot program.

In July this year, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao made important instructions to promote the pilot work for cooperative health care in rural areas.