Recently, the Housing Fund Management Center for Central State Organs has issued the Circular on Implementing the Guidelines on the Reform of Streamlining Administration, Delegating Powers, and Improving Regulation and Services and Doing well in the Deposit of Housing Funds (the "Circular").
The Circular clearly states that full support will be pledged to the construction of the Xiong'an New Area in Hebei province for its role of intensively undertaking the non-capital functions phased out by Beijing. The Housing Fund Management Center will actively provide quality services for those entities relocated to the Xiong'an New Area and employees thereof with regard to the registration and deposit of housing funds, in order to ensure the consistency of their housing fund accounts and the continuity of the deposit and guarantee that they enjoy the same rights and interests in withdrawing and using the housing funds as those for Beijing-located entities and employees thereof. Also, the Circular points out that employers are encouraged to pay the housing provident funds for technical innovation talents coming from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan or foreign countries, making them entitled to rights and interests identical to those for other employees. Moreover, the Circular stresses that central enterprises need to ensure that the housing funds of their employees will be transferred and continued in an orderly manner, during the process of downsizing employees and narrowing down their business scope, mergers and acquisitions, or dealing with zombie enterprises, in an attempt to protect resettled employees' legitimate rights and interests in respect of housing funds.