China has made good progress in improving social security by having vigorously expanded government-run social insurance programs in the the past five years, according to a senior official.

By last year 173 million people had been covered by pension insurance, while 137 million by basic medical insurance, and 106 million by unemployment insurance, said Liu Yongfu, vice-minister of Labor and Social Security at a national conference on supervision of social insurance funds held here.

Eighty million people were covered against occupational injury and 53.8 million for pre- and post-natal care.

Liu said the country's social insurance funds were increasing at an annual rate of 20 percent, hitting 1.84 trillion yuan (227.3 billion U.S. dollars) last year, equaling 10 percent of the gross domestic product.

Premium revenue from the five social insurance programs totaled 2.48 trillion yuan during the 10th five-year-plan period (2001-2005), while pay outs stood at 2.03 trillion yuan, increasing by 169 percent and 357 percent from the comparable statistics ending the ninth five-year-plan period (1996-2000).

Under China's current social security framework, employees are entitled to benefits of five main insurance programs for purposes of pension, unemployment, medical treatment, injury at work, and pre-and postal-natal care if the employees are female.

Apart from funding by the government, the social insurance programs also get contributions from both employers and employees, who pay monthly into the funds by varying proportions before retirement of the employees.