Time flies. In the twinkling of an eye, another year has elapsed. As look back and ahead, many things and the lots of experience I have learned from work come back to me. All sorts of feelings and a myriad of thoughts well up in my mind. While I am heartened by the bright prospects of my motherland, a closer look reveals many evils of the day lurking behind her prosperity. "Life has never been free of regrets. The vicissitudes of life still leave one in wonder" As we enter a new year, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of my thoughts and feelings.

Education comes first in building a country. For decades, our country has vigorously promoted universal education and across the country illiteracy has now become a thing of the past. The era of high technology comes with a higher demand for the quality and quantity of education, which is a major indicator of the success or failure of a country. To build a prosperous, high-quality community, the Government must provide adequate policies and economic support in order to foster its faster and better development. We are pleased to see that the "Nine-year Compulsory Education" has benefitted millions of students, poor rural areas and villages; however, we also notice that the Government’s investment in education has remained low over the years (which is planned to reach 4% of the GDP in 2012) and is lower than that of many developing countries such as Africa, let alone developed countries, and does not rank within the top 100 countries in the world.

Due to the inadequate investment in education resources and unfair distribution, education development is not balanced in different areas and focuses on cities and towns, where the level of education is comparable to or even excels some advanced industrial countries. The remote and mountainous rural areas however get less resources and there the development of education has been slow, with is a lack of basic teaching facilities and teachers. Senior secondary education is not compulsory in these areas and tuition fees and other expenses are high, which in effect deters poor but dedicated students from furthering their studies. This year has witnessed a decline in the number of candidates sitting for the National Higher Education Entrance Examination. As a result, even though some universities lowered their entrance requirements in the second round of enrollment, they still failed to recruit enough students to meet the target.

The revival of China is built on improving the quality of all the Chinese people, especially on changing the composition of the rural population, which in a large part has to be done through education. It is hoped that the leaders of our country and the governments at all levels will take the issue of unbalanced education seriously and promote a balanced development of education by increasing the allocation of resources and providing the necessary support, not only in quantity but also in quality. Health care services and medical insurance protection concern the health of all people. This year the Government has introduced reforms to the healthcare system and as a result of that, there has been some improvement in the past situation in which medical services were inaccessible and too expensive. We have visited many rural and mountainous areas of cities and counties and found most of them are now equipped with basic healthcare facilities; even in the ethnic minority areas, there are village doctors stationed or touring around to treat patients. This has greatly improved the once backward healthcare services. Now the urban population has medical insurance and the New Rural Co-operative Medical System covers 45% of village households in the rural areas, which tentatively reduces the financial burden of both the urban and the rural masses.

China has a vast territory and thus economic development in different areas is unbalanced. There is inadequate government investment of resources in poor remote areas, where it is a common fact that there are equipment shortages in medical institutions and poor quality of medical personnel. The Government’s care for the low-income earners (particularly those in villages), laid-off workers, urban migrant workers, is far from adequate and these people have yet to feel the benefits. Although medical insurance scheme tentatively reduces the financial pressure of the patients, the reality of expensive medical expenses still bothers many patients, one of the reasons being the lack of government funding. Hospitals cannot but go self-funded, relying on the fees charged to patients to maintain the day-to-day operation or getting loans from banks to develop and thus become debt-ridden. The treatment for a minor illness would cost over one hundred yuan and would send a poor patient around to raise the fund, not to mention a serious illness. A surgery fee of thousands of yuan is simply unaffordable to many patients. Expensive healthcare service is the most pressing problem that needs to be dealt with in the first place. I hope that the medical reforms will continued to be deepened and that the Government will establish a new people-oriented mechanism by increasing the national financial investment to reduce the burden on the masses, help the poor and act in the best interest of the people.

In the coming year, we will continue to uphold our founding principle. Resources permitting, we will keep pace with the time and strive to do well in education. We will continue to help the poor with their schooling, strengthen training and healthcare services.

Most of the Foundation-funded schools have manifested significant progress in academic results, though there are a few with a decline in their academic achievements, over which we expressed our deep concern. The Foundation will strengthen ties with and supervision over these schools to help them improve their weaknesses. Fengxiang Secondary School in Shanwei, Guangdong Province, for example, is the focus of our attention.

It has been eleven years since the "Deepening Education Fund" was first launched. The effect of this follow-up encouragement measure is significant. It has helped many schools improve the hardware and software facilities, enable teachers to obtain professional qualifications and enhance the quality of teaching. It rewards hardworking students and dedicated teachers and enables poor students to complete their studies. We will continue our work on this aspect.

In the past few years, in cooperation with seven secondary schools in Guangxi, Guizhou and Qinghai provinces, we have run twenty-seven senior secondary education subsidized classes helping poor students with outstanding academic results to study in high schools. Most of the students studying in the subsidized class have achieved good academic results and since 2007, a number of them have been admitted to universities every year after sitting for National Higher Education Entrance Examination. We are very gratified at these achievements and have awarded them examination grants. This project will continue because it is our wish to train more talents for our society.

For eleven years in Gansu Province, we have carried out eleven phases of the "Blue Sky Mission ", providing surgeries for cataract patients free of charge. These surgeries entitled "Helping the Poor and Sending the Light" have restored the vision of over ten thousand patients, which has in return brought about good social and economic benefits. The "Blue Sky Mission" will continue this year.

At the request of the Affiliated Hospital of Gannan Medical University in Jiangxi to sponsor congenital cardiac surgery, we started the plan and are now subsidizing 50-70 cases per year. The Shanwei Yat Fai Foundation Hospital is now working towards the goal of becoming a “Third Grade Class A" hospital. There are however financial and various problems to be sorted out before this goal can be attained. We are actively seeking sustainable development plans to improve the quality of medical care in Shanwei and its surrounding areas. There are other issues to be addressed such as how to help ill-performing schools and schools with dilapidated facilities, and so on. We will solve these problems properly and help the schools overcome the difficulties.

All in all, we are faced with a vast demand from various aspects. I am glad to say that we have a working team of dedicated and enterprising members, who are prepared to accomplish the mission, to render help to each other and to contribute to the revival of our country.