China is building up a legal system on occupational health inspection to control occupational diseases, and protect health and related rights of workers, according to officials at the International Conference on Safety and Health in the Construction Sector going on in Macao on Tuesday.

At the International Association of Labor Inspection's meeting held in the Asian region, Chinese officials and specialists from the ministries of health and construction and the State Administration of Work Safety made presentations to elaborate China's efforts on controlling work safety and curbing occupational diseases.

Wu Xin, director general of the Second Department of the State Administration of Work Safety, analyzed the status quo of work safety in China, saying that China's mainland has over 38 million building workers, which forms the largest industrial labor group in the world.

Wu said that the total output value of building in China's mainland reached 2.18 trillion yuan (272 billion US dollars) in 2003, accounting for 18.7 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). The growing construction industry has not only promoted the economic growth, but also absorbed rural labors so asto improve farmers' income.

However, Wu said that due to the comparatively low productivity and the quality of laborers as well as weak supervision system of the construction sector, the general situation of work safety is still grim. About a thousand construction workers suffer injury and death as a result of construction hazards every year.

According to He Qinghua, director of the Division of Public Health Supervision of the Department of Health Law Enforcement and Supervision of the Ministry of Health, casualties from accidents of falling from high places accounted for 42 to 45 percent of construction work hazards.

Li Tao, director of the National Institute of Occupational Health and Poison Center, said that the incidence of occupational diseases in China's mainland has suggested an upturn since 1997 with the pneumoconiosis topping the list of all 115 sorts of diseases.

He said that dusts and radioactive materials are the main cause of pneumoconiosis. Accumulated cases of pneumoconiosis in history amounted to 581,377 with 442,200 people still alive, according to the center's statistics in 2003.

He said that China has put 303,489 plants in national special supervision actions for occupational hazards, and found 599,069 people necessary for professional health monitoring.

Source: Xinhua