A senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has called for more efforts to reduce unemployment in the rejuvenation of northeast China's Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces, a major industrial base of China.

Huang Ju, vice premier and a member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, made the call during his inspection tour of Heilongjiang and Jilin on October 23-27.

During his tour, Huang visited a well drilling team, some local companies, human resources agencies and some laid-off workers. He urged the local government to grasp the historical opportunity of the northeast revitalization and do a good job of providing employment and social security, as these issues are essential for maintaining social stability.

The three provinces in northeast China, known as the "industrial cradle of China", played a vital role in the country's industrial development from the 1950s to the early 1970s.

The northeast region produced the country's first steel, machine tools, locomotives and planes after the founding of New China in 1949.

However, many of the traditional industrial firms established in the 1950s when China adopted a planned economic system have become less competitive since the country implemented the policies of reform and opening up to the outside world, and moved toward a market economy two decades ago.

The proportion of the region's industrial output value to the national total has dropped to 9 percent from 17 percent. Some loss-making state industries were closed, laying off large numbers of workers.

As the most populous country in the world, China faces a pressing unemployment problem. The unemployment rate in its urban areas went up to the current 4.2 percent from 3.1 percent in 1998.

This year, 24 million people need jobs in China. They include 10 million new job seekers such as graduates from universities, colleges and various technical schools, 6 million workers laid off from state-owned and collective enterprises and 8 million registered jobless people, according to statistics from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. In rural areas, there are 150 million redundant laborers who need jobs.

The Chinese government attaches great importance to creating more opportunities for employment, a major task at present and for a long period to come. The State Council, or the cabinet, has ordered 13 ministries and commissions to cooperate in adopting a series of preferential policies to increase employment.

(Xinhua News Agency October 29, 2003)