China pledges increasing spending on COVID containment-finance ministry

China's finance ministry on Monday issued a notice on increasing the funding for COVID-19 prevention and control, vowing it will step up transfer payments to rural areas to help with local virus containment, according to a statement by the ministry.

China will also support the use of special local government bonds on building qualified health care projects, as the country is seeing a surge in COVID infections after Beijing abruptly removed stringent anti-virus curbs last month.