The Chinese government has announced that it will invest nearly 60 billion U.S. dollars to reduce the country's notorious industrial accident rate over the next five years.

In its first ever five-year plan on workplace security, the government said it would reduce the death rate per 100 million yuan (12.5 million U.S. dollar) of gross domestic product from 0.70 last year to 0.45 in 2010.

The accident death rate of every 100,000 employees is set to drop from 3.85 last year to 2.8 in 2010 in mining sector and other industries.

The State Administration of Work Safety said the plan aims to reduce the number of accidents with more than ten deaths by at least 20 percent. China reported 73 such cases last year.

The total sum of 467.4 billion yuan (58.6 billion US dollars) to be invested in the future five years will go to nine safety projects including coal mine accident prevention, which is the toppriority task in the five-year layout on work safety.

In recent ten years, coal mine accidents account for 58 percent of the serious accidents where over 30 people died. Official figures show that 371 people died in China's coal mine accidents with more than ten deaths in the first seven months.

With the huge investment, China plans to do more training on safety production, monitor potential accidents and encourage reporting of illegal behavior.

The government aims to solve problems of poor production conditions, frequent accidents, and low level of management in small coal mines within three years.

A monitoring system would be launched to supervise over possible safety accidents, according to the plan. More efforts would be made to improve management and supervision over non-coal mines, dangerous chemicals and fireworks. Fire control in places with high population is also strengthened.

Besides, the government would launch registration on dangers at work and reinforce fights against such cases.

Driven by economic interests, some local governments have turned a blind eye to safety problems in factories and coal mines.The country faces increasingly severe safety problems.

Last year, about 127,000 people in China died in workplace accidents and there were 17 incidents with death tolls exceeding 30.

The plan says work safety should be included in the economic and social development program and in the evaluation of local officials.
 
Editor: Yan