Chinese President Hu Jintao met with domestic and foreign charity workers and groups on Friday ahead of a ceremony to honor their contributions.

Awards were given to 227 individuals, 188 enterprises and 32 organizations at the Second China Charity Conference, hosted by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

After the devastating May 12 earthquake, Chinese and foreign donors contributed about 76.2 billion yuan (11 billion U.S. dollars) for relief and rehabilitation.

"It shows the government promoted charity affairs to a new height and it is key to build a harmonious society," said Xu Guangyuan, vice director-general of the China Youth Development Foundation, who was honored on Friday.

The first conference was held in 2005. Before that, total donations to Chinese charities were no more than 10 billion yuan. But by this year, the figure had risen to almost 100 billion yuan, including about 60 billion yuan for the quake alone, according to the ministry.

To boost charity and social welfare, the ministry in September set up a new department to deal with welfare lotteries, charitable activities, donations and welfare projects for the elderly, disabled and children.

"China's charity work has built up great energy as a result of the May 12 earthquake," the new department's director, Wang Zhenyao, said.

Domestic donations from individuals exceeded those from companies for the first time, which indicated the public awareness of charitable work had grown, Wang said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2008)