Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs Yang Yanyin said Tuesday that donations will be made to the needy "as soon as possible".

Yang also pledged that his ministry will publicize information concerning the acceptance, distribution and use of donations to increase the transparency of the work.

By the end of 2002, around 21,000 regular donation sites had been established and 15 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions had made headway in networking their regular donation sites.

Special efforts have been made ahead of the forthcoming Spring Festival.

A nationwide donation campaign was launched in December and has sparked a deluge of goodwill gifts.

Kind-hearted residents in Beijing donated a total of 28.975 million yuan (US$3.521 million) within 20 days. In addition, Liaoning, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and many other provinces and autonomous regions have become engaged in the poverty-relief campaign, according to the ministry.

Donation money has already been sent to east China's Jiangxi Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China. Both were struck by natural disasters last year.

From January 11 to 18, young volunteers throughout the country participated in an aid-the-poor program launched by the Central Committee of Communist Youth League of China.

They went to poverty-afflicted communities and the countryside where they delivered lectures on science and offered free medical consultation and treatment to local residents.

On January 19, in Chengdu, capital city of southwest China's Sichuan Province, local institutions, enterprises and residents generously contributed money, clothes and other necessities to low-income families. In addition, 29 units have offered more than 700 job opportunities to laid-off workers.

(China Daily January 29, 2003)