China needs to invest 68.9 billion yuan (US$ 8.54 billion) to improve state-owned coal mine safety, which is higher than the previous estimate of 50.5 billion yuan, according to Li Yizhong, director of State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS).

The work safety chief said on 8 February that the SAWS commissioned 100 safety experts to investigate 54 large coal mines and 462 smaller coal mines and they discovered 5,886 problems in those coal mines. The experts concluded that 68.9 billion yuan is needed to improve the coal mine safety across the country, which is 18.4 billion yuan more than the previous estimate, according to the China News Service.

The report said in order to fill in this huge gap of safety funds, the government had invested 3 billion yuan in 2005 and it was expected to invest the same amount of money in work safety in the following two years.

Li said he hoped that mine operators would also invest in the safety funds in future and he also hoped that there would be enough funds to tackle coal mine safety problems in two years.

Source: China News Service (8 February 2006)

9 February 2006