China will place greater importance on training government officials over the next five years, according to the State Administration of Civil Service (SACS) on Wednesday.

Newly-appointed officials must receive training relevant to their position within a year before their probationary period ends, said Yang Shiqiu, Deputy Head of the SACS, at a working conference on the country's training program for public servants.

It was learned at the conference that local governments in the country's eastern regions would help train 100,000 civil servants working in areas of central and western China over the next five years.

More than 13,000 civil servants have benefited from the training program since it was established in 2000.

Yang said the country would also increase efforts to train civil servants in revolutionary base areas, ethnic regions, frontier zones, poverty-stricken regions and disaster-hit regions.