Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan Thursday advocated building and improving a long-term work mechanism to guarantee migrant workers are paid on time and pledged to intensify efforts of retrieving defaulted construction funds for construction companies from local governments.

In his speech at a forum held in Beijing by the State Council, or the central Chinese government, Zeng said a total of 33.1 billion yuan (about US$4 billion) of salary in arrears has been retrieved and given back to migrant workers so far, 98.4 percent of the total defaulted amount.

Zeng said that construction companies could not default workers' salaries in the future, and governments at all levels should intensify supervision of the construction market.

"Construction companies found to default workers' salaries in the future will have poor credit records, will have a hard time to get market entrance approval next time and will face legal responsibility," Zeng said.

Zeng said after the goal of helping migrant workers get back pay was achieved, the government should help construction companies get construction funds owed to them by local governments. The budgets for local governments will be adjusted to help them pay back defaulted construction funds.

He said fixed assets investment will be cooled down in 2005, which will help prevent future salary defaults.

China has 140 million migrant workers. A large proportion of them are working in the construction sector.

In October 2003, Premier Wen Jiabao helped Xiong Deming, a 42-year-old country woman from an outlying village of Chongqing Municipality, retrieve her husband's defaulted salary after she made a complaint while Wen was conducting a surprise inspection of Xiong's Longquan Village of Yunyang Country, Chongqing.

Since then, a year-long campaign was launched in China to help migrant workers regain their wages in arrears.

(Xinhua News Agency January 8, 2005)

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