Yang Yanyin, vice minister of civil affairs, said new centers for accepting donations would be widely distributed and open around the clock to make it much easier for donors.

Meanwhile, it was also essential to inform the public via the media or other forms of publicity about the administration and use of donated money and materials, said Yang, who was in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, for a national meeting on disaster control and relief work there.

A mechanism should be established to award outstanding donors and publicize donation efforts, and moves should also be made to standardize such aspects as organizing collections, registering donations and distributing aid at the grassroots levels, the official said.

China now has more than 20,000 regular centers for handling charitable donations across the country. Cash donations amounting to 1.2 billion yuan (US$145 million), plus various kinds of relief goods including about 220 million garments and quilts were given last year in the country, which benefited a total of 27.98 million people in want and need.

(Xinhua News Agency February 24, 2003)