Nation handles accident, yuan rate

Ministries have responded to a series of public and media concerns about policy implementation and recent incidents over the past week, including an accident in a power plant in Jiangxi province, the renminbi exchange rate, vocational license regulation, and environmental protection.

The State Administration of Work Safety, affiliated to the State Council, published an open letter on its official website to report an accident on Nov 24 at a power plant in Fengcheng, East China's Jiangxi province. A construction platform for a cooling tower collapsed, killing 74 and injuring another two, mostly construction workers.

The SAWS said that upon receiving information about the accident, they sent out working teams to the site to help the local government with rescue operations and dealing with the aftermath. It asked safety administrations at all levels to conduct a special inspection of construction sites and check the stability of scaffolds and other devices related to worker safety. It also requires local governments to make clear the accountability of officials for construction accidents, and hold any official accountable for neglecting safety.

Yi Gang, vice governor of the People's Bank of China, the central bank, told Xinhua News Agency late on Sunday that the yuan remains a stable and strong currency in the global monetary system, and it cannot be ruled out that the US dollar could drop.

Yi said the yuan's depreciation against the dollar is quite limited compared with other currencies and it has risen significantly against a basket of major currencies in recent years, thus "presenting the characteristics of a stable and strong currency in the global monetary system".

Tang Tao, vice-minister of human resources and social security, said at a news conference on Nov 25 that his ministry is reviewing past efforts to cancel vocational qualification licenses and will better regulate local governments in implementation of the policy. According to Tang, the administration had already canceled 319 such licenses nationwide in the past six rounds of reforms and this time they have canceled another 114.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection told the media about its first round of inspection of local governments. The ministry said it has found environmental protection-related problems with local governments in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Henan and Guizhou provinces, and corrected the wrongdoings of certain local governments that fail to curb polluting enterprises under their jurisdiction. In Qiqihar city, Heilongjiang province, the local government received reports from residents about an enterprise damaging the environment, but failed to punish the wrongdoers. The central environmental inspection team not only punished the responsible person, but also held accountable the officials that failed to do their jobs.

zhangzhouxiang@chinadaily.com.cn