The State Council approved a five-year plan on safe production during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), according to a circular issued on Feb 3.

The plan listed major tasks in promoting safe production, mainly concerning strengthening the role of enterprises and local governments, improving related laws and regulations, preventing serious accidents, controlling occupational diseases, and enhancing emergency response mechanisms.

According to the plan, by 2020, production accidents and deaths from such accidents will both fall 10 percent from 2015, and the number of severe accidents, in which more than 10 people are killed or over 10 million yuan in direct economic losses are incurred, and deaths in such accidents will drop 20 percent and 22 percent, respectively.

Enterprises should establish special management institutions on safe production, hire professional managing staff and registered engineers on safe production, said the circular. It stressed the importance of safety in industries and business operations and called for more government efforts. Safe production should be included in the assessment and evaluation systems of socio-economic development and officials’ performance, the circular added.

A medium- and long-term legislative plan on safe production should be introduced, and efforts should be made to build and improve coordination on establishment, modification, abolishment and explanation of safe production laws and regulations. The document also required setting up a safe production standard system with a mandatory standard as the main principle. Additionally, supervision on safe production should be strengthened through improving standards of law enforcement and regulating tools, said the document.

In controlling severe accidents, the plan stressed strengthening risk level controls and investigation and reduction of hidden risks in 17 major fields, including coal mines, hazardous chemicals, fireworks, water transportation, and civil aviation transportation.

The plan also urged strengthening prevention and treatment of occupational diseases, through surveys on harms of such diseases, strengthening control in high-risk workplaces, and building national and regional technology support networks.

In addition, sci-tech research and development is also highlighted in the plan, setting a goal that by 2020, the degree of mechanization, such as using industrial robots and smart equipment, in high-risk industries such as mines and dangerous chemicals, will surpass 80 percent.

Enterprises should establish risk assessment systems and both companies and governments should improve emergency plans and on-site response capacities in efforts to enhance emergency response mechanism on safe production, according to the plan.

The document also laid out major projects on safe production within the five years, including establishing a national big data platform on safe production information, carrying out a national survey on occupational diseases, and relocating factories of hazardous chemicals and chemical engineering from urban high-population areas.