The Chinese government is planning to strengthen safety
supervision over its scattered fireworks manufacturers to reduce
the rising cases of accidental fireworks explosions.
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Sun Huashan, deputy director of the State Administration for the
Supervision of Production Safety, told a national fireworks safety
conference in Liuyang in
Hunan Province that the incomplete safety supervision system in
China's fireworks industry is the main reason for explosions.
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From 1985 to 2003, a total of 8,448 explosions caused by fireworks
took place across China, an average of 445 cases per year. Though
the number of cases declines each year, the annual casualty rate is
climbing, said Sun.
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Sun urged local authorities to pay attention to major
fireworks-related accidents that kill three or more people. In
2003, though there were only 22 cases of major accidents, 249
people were killed and 404 injured.
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Sun said China's fireworks industry is still in the process of
regulation, which resulted in a weak safety supervision system in
the whole industry. Most cases were caused by illegal manufacture
or transportation or shoddy manufacture.
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Sun said the Chinese government will strengthen supervision over
the industry in the future, and raise the threshold for new
fireworks manufacturers to enter the market.
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The government will encourage small-sized fireworks manufacturers
to consolidate into larger ones, and will develop the provinces of
Hunan and Jiangxi and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region into three
major manufacturing bases of China's fireworks industry.
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At the start of the year there were a total of 7,064 fireworks
companies in 26 Chinese provinces, 74 percent of which are located
in Hunan, Jiangxi and Guangxi. The sales of fireworks in these
places accounted for 83 percent of the national total.?
(Xinhua News Agency October 1, 2004)