Shanghai Provident Fund Management Center is poised to jointly conduct law enforcement inspection with the municipal Housing Provident Fund Management Committee  and the municipal trade union of housing provident fund payment in the municipality from April through July 2013, in an effort to further strengthen housing provident fund payment administration by means of enhanced housing provident fund publicity and education for housing provident fund coverage expansion to give legal teeth to safeguarding employees’ legitimate rights and interests.

This round of law enforcement inspection shall be applicable to all units in the municipality, including state organs, state-owned enterprises, collective enterprises in cities and towns, foreign-invested enterprises, private enterprises in cities and towns and other enterprises in cities and towns, institutions, private non-enterprise units and associations. The inspection mainly aims at status of the unit’s housing provident fund payment for the employee, including whether a unit has fulfilled the formalities for housing provident fund payment registration within 30 days as of the date of its establishment, whether the unit completes the formalities for opening or transfering its employee’s housing provident fund account within 30 days as of the date of hiring, whether the unit makes timely (within 5 days as of the pay day every month) and adequate (pursuant to the stipulated payment base and rate) housing provident fund payment, whether the unit makes housing provident fund payment for its employees with rural household registrations and for the dispatch employees.

The law enforcement inspection campaign shall be divided into two phases: self checking and correction phase from mid-April through end of May, which requires each unit to assign a person in charge of self-checking pursuant to relevant state and municipal housing provident fund provisions, fill in Housing Provident Fund Payment Status Self-Checking Form accordingly, and take corrective and remedial measures against nonconformities as necessary, and law enforcement sampling inspection in June, during which a law enforcement inspection team shall be organized jointly by the municipal Housing Provident Fund Management Committee, the municipal Trade Union and Shanghai Provident Fund Management Center, and conduct sampling inspection of a proportion of units.

Shanghai Provident Fund Management Center shall step up efforts to increase publicity of housing provident fund system by means of mass media such as radio, television and newspapers for units’ recognition of payment responsibilities and employees’ awareness of legitimate rights and interests, in tandem with law enforcement inspection of units concerned. In cases of units’ failure to make housing provident fund payment for employees, the Center shall proceed, based on the principle of a combination of education and penalty, to give instructions for education and require remedial measures, or otherwise to impose administrative penalties or apply to courts for mandatory enforcement measures over those units refusing to cooperate or take corrective actions in accordance with Regulations on Management of Housing Provident Fund, Provisions of Shanghai Municipality on Administration of Housing Provident Fund and Measures on Management of Shanghai Housing Provident Fund Administrative Enforcement.

Shanghai Provident Fund Management Center has ramped up policy publicity, administrative regulation and enforcement inspection in recent years. As a result, housing provident fund system coverage has been expanded, and paying employees and payment amount recorded sustained growth. Housing provident fund paying employees of the municipality in 2012 posted 4.8758 million, and annual payment amount of housing provident fund and additional housing provident fund was 59.464 billion yuan. Payment amount of housing provident fund and additional housing provident fund by end of 2012 totaled 374.506 billion yuan, and cumulative withdrawals recorded 193.996 billion yuan. The cumulative loans issued was 300.86 billion yuan, to 1.6753 million households, with a total of 0.152 billion square meters home purchase building area, which helped improve employees’ housing conditions.