Increasing life expectancy has long been a goal the human race has sought, now it's written into the economic and social development plan of an east China city.

The city government of Xinyu in Jiangxi Province has worked out a way to extend local people's average life expectancy to 78 years in 2015 from 76.4 years in 2010.

The city plans to realize its goal through improving the environment, living standards, social security and public services.

It is the first time that such a goal has been included in the local government's Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), according to Li Anze, the city's Communist Party chief.

According to the plan, the city with a population of over 1.1 million also targets a further longevity increase of two years to 80 years during the period from 2018 to 2020. "As people's standard of living gets better and they no longer need to worry about food and clothes, living a long, healthy and happy life means more to them than ever,' Li said.

"Embedding longer life expectancy into a city's economic and social development plan means that the government is trying to put more efforts into improving people's livelihood and that its approach on governance is obviously changing," said Li Yunqi, vice head of the Party School of the Communist Party of China Xinyu City Committee.

Besides Xinyu, some local governments have made people's happiness a top priority in their 12th Five-Year Plan, shifting the focus from rapid -economic growth to improving people's livelihoods.

Lin Yu, head of the city's development and reform commission, said longevity depends on the quality of water and air, the safety of food and medicine, as well as a sound social security system.

According to Li Anze, Xinyu had mulled over the subject during the past two years after experts' research and analysis into extending people's life expectancy to 80 years in eight to 10 years. Now the city has taken steps to get closer to that goal.

The city had shut down more than 370 polluting plants since last year and the quality of the drinking water was improving, said Zou Jianfu, head of the city's environmental protection bureau.

Meanwhile, the city's health bureau has hired more than 50 medical experts from across the country to help improve its health care system, said Zhou Pinggen, director of the bureau.

In the plan, Xinyu lists targets in several sectors, such as the environment, cutting down on emissions, improving food safety standards, social security and social services, according to Li.