Members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) have donated more than 9.7 billion yuan (about 1.4 billion U.S. dollars) under the category of "special Party membership dues" as of Thursday to help with reconstruction of quake-hit southwest China.

The Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee said on Thursday that more than 60 percent of the 73 million CPC members had made the voluntary contribution.

More than 8 billion yuan will go to Sichuan Province, where the quake was centered and which sustained more than 90 percent of the total losses of 845.1 billion yuan.

Its neighboring provinces -- Gansu and Shaanxi -- will get 1 billion yuan and 500 million yuan, respectively, while the remaining 200 million yuan is to be shared by Yunnan Province and the city of Chongqing.

New CPC dues and interest on the contributions will all go to Sichuan Province, according to a circular jointly issued by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance.

The money is to help build a middle school and a primary school in each of the worst-hit counties, renovate or rebuild collapsed farmhouses and village sites for CPC activities and compensate the families of those who died in the line of duty.

The special dues were solicited shortly after the quake on May 12, with the amount left to individual Party members.

The earthquake, the worst in China in three decades, left more than 87,000 dead or missing and millions homeless.

Goods and cash with a total value of 59.5 billion yuan had been donated to help the survivors as of mid-November, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Local authorities in Sichuan plan to invest at least 3 trillion yuan for reconstruction by 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency December 4, 2008)