China's Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang urged to improve workplace safety and reduce accidents on Thursday in a teleconference that aimed to improve work conditions.

Workplace safety had been improved last year. The number of work accidents and the death toll declined 18.3 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively, from the previous year, Zhang said.

The actual casualty in work accidents was reduced to less than 100,000 in 2008 for the first time since 2005. Accidents in multi-million-tonne coal mines also dropped 20.4 percent year-on-year.

Yet Zhang warned that severe accidents were still taking place.

"Reasons that cause accidents haven't been resolved. Local governments' supervision over workplace safety is not put in place. To create better work conditions is a major responsibility of local governments," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2009)