Dinghai district in Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang province has been included a provincial program aimed at providing better public-interest childcare services, according to an announcement by the provincial Department of Finance on Oct 13. 

Seventeen places in the province made the list. 

The program is designed to establish a sound system and explore new means of providing diversified nursery services that will be replicated and promoted to other places in the province. 

He Zhongwei, Party secretary of Zhoushan, noted that the local government will encourage more social organizations to be involved in public childcare services. 

He added that authorities will strengthen their support for nursery care facilities in terms of policies, funds and technologies, which will be key to promoting the high-quality development of the city's childcare services. 

Dinghai authorities have rolled out a series of measures, including strengthening supervision over nursery service facilities and offering subsidies of 20,000 yuan ($2,829.42) to childcare centers, to achieve its goal of raising the number of nursery slots per 1,000 children from the current 1.8 to 4.5 by 2025. 

Dinghai district added 298 nursery care slots, 179 of which are public-interest slots this year, according to authorities.