China reports fewer accidents and deaths in industrial production in the first five months of this year.

In comparison with the same period last year, the country saw decreases of 11.4 percent and 12.1 percent in the number of accidents and death tolls from January to May this year, said Li Yizhong, chief of the State Administration of Work Safety, at an event in Beijing on Sunday to mark "safety work" month in June.

The number of cases in which the death toll was above 10 dropped by seven while the number of major cases involving a death toll of over 30 went down by four, said Li, who did not give an overall figure as to the exact number of accidents or people killed in industrial activities.

In light of an increased number of coal mine accidents during May, Li called for greater efforts in executing work safety responsibilities, improving the government department's role as a supervisory organization and making work safety more transparent.

In its 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), China set goals of reducing fatalities by 35 percent for every 100 million yuan of gross domestic product, and a reduction of 25 percent of fatalities from production-related accidents for every 100,000 people working in industrial factories and mines.

(Xinhua News Agency June 12, 2006)