HARBIN - A project aiming to expand the coverage of social security services for China's religious personnel has made significant progress over the past year, Jiang Jianyong, vice-director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) said on Monday.

Jiang made the remarks at a national meeting on religious affairs held in Northeast China's?Heilongjiang province.

In Beijing, all religious personnel are now covered by the social security system, and in Fujian province, the coverage of health insurance for local religious personnel has reached 99 percent.

In the Tibetan-inhabited areas of Southwest China's Sichuan province, religious personnel can enjoy the same social security schemes designed for local rural residents, Jiang said.

In the country's other regions, the project is also progressing, with seven provincial-level regions -- Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Yunnan, Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang -- managing to expand the social security services to cover more than 80 percent of clergy in the religious circle, Jiang said.

The work nationwide was scheduled to conclude by the end of 2012.

Initiated by the SARA, the project was one of the measures designed to improve the livelihood of the nation's religious circle.