China's 140 million migrant rural workers will soon be covered by the nation's old-age pension scheme, according to Zhang Xiaojian, vice minister of labor and social security.

A draft of the national old-age insurance system for migrant rural workers has been worked out and will be submitted to the State Council for approval, said Zhang at a conference on regional labor cooperation last Sunday. According to the draft, rural workers with stable jobs will be included in the basic old-age insurance system that already exists for company employees in urban areas.

Those who do not have stable jobs can join the new old-age insurance scheme for migrant rural workers, in which companies and individuals both make compulsory contributions. The employee's contribution is limited to 5 percent of their monthly salaries.

Workers will have a personal pension account into which premiums paid by workers and their employer will be saved.

Rural workers will take part in the pension scheme at the site where they are employed. If they change their employer, their accounts will follow them from job to job, according to the draft.

The old-age security fund for migrant rural workers will be managed by provincial social security institutions.

About 140 million of China's 900 million rural population now work at construction sites, factory production lines or tertiary trade in urban areas, doing jobs that city dwellers find too strenuous, dirty or low paid.

This group of people, excluded from the urban job market and from social security schemes, have drawn the attention of society and government in recent years.

A safety insurance program was launched in 2006 to protect migrant workers. Figures released earlier show that nearly 27 million migrant workers are now covered by work injury insurance.

(Xingu News Agency June 12, 2007)