Shi Baoquan, deputy administrator of the State Administration for Standardization, was quoted by Thursday's China Daily as saying that the new standard will be effective in making enterprises aware of health and safety and maintaining their awareness.

The new specification was issued by the administration and the China National Regulatory Commission for Certification and Accreditation.

All enterprises will be encouraged to follow the standard, especially those whose employees are more exposed to noxious chemicals, noise, dust or other pollution, or companies where work conditions are very dangerous and industrial accidents on the rise.

The reported number of people who have died in industrial accidents has increased every year since the beginning of the 1990s.

More than 500,000 industrial plants and mines have occupational health hazards, and over 25 million employees are exposed to dust, noise or toxic chemicals.

In 2000, nearly 12,000 cases of workplace disease were reported, including the lung disease pneumoconiosis, which is caused by inhaling dust or small particles.

This was an increase of 14.5 percent over 1999. Pneumoconiosis patients accounted for more than 77 percent of all the cases, according to the Ministry of Health.

The financial cost of work-related accidents and occupational diseases comes to around 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) a year and the figure has been on the increase in the last few years.

(Xinhua News Agency December 20, 2001)