Beijing Youth Daily:

The Work Safety Commission under China's State Council recently carried out a special operation to investigate and rectify hidden safety risks to prevent major accidents . How is the operation different from previous ones? What progress and achievements have we achieved? Thank you.

Song Yuanming:

Thank you. As Mr. Wang just mentioned, the operation is mainly designed to implement the guiding principles of the 20th CPC National Congress and the instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping on production safety. The State Council's Work Safety Commission has done research and arranged the special operation to investigate and rectify hidden safety risks to prevent major accidents in 2023. This operation was reviewed at the plenary meeting of the State Council's Work Safety Commission and approved by Premier Li Qiang. This action revolves around two aspects proposed by Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, which are to effectively improve the quality of hidden risk investigation and rectification and to effectively enhance the willingness and ability to uncover and solve problems. It encompasses three aspects: the primary responsibility of enterprises, the regulatory responsibility of various departments, and the leadership responsibility of local Party committees and governments. Each party is assigned five critical tasks and they are required to coordinate to achieve practical results during this operation. Compared with previous operations, this one has the following features:

First, we are focusing on major hidden risks. Our focus lies on major accident hazards that have the potential to result in mass casualties. These hazards include uncompliant hot work operation, disorganized management of outsourcing and leasing, enterprises not conducting emergency drills, employees being unfamiliar with escape exits, and other lessons learned from previous accidents. We make the priorities clear and don't target all issues indiscriminately.

Second, we are focusing on the "key few." Those holding principal positions in leadership are the first to be held accountable for eliminating major accident hazards in accordance with the law. This operation focuses on the "key few," requiring principal members of leadership teams in enterprise s to take the lead in studying and organizing the investigation and rectification of major accident hazards. As the person in charge of the enterprise, they must lead the entire management team and all employees to implement their responsibilities.

Third, we are adopting a principle of "politeness first and force later." The special action requires all enterprises to conduct self-examination and self-correction for one to two months. During this period, enterprises can hire experts to help them uncover and solve problems or apply to the government for assistance and guidance. After these efforts, the government regulatory departments will make efforts to ensure precise and strict law enforcement. We will give companies time to check and correct their problems. However, we will punish them severely if they do not report or correct their problems. We will punish both the company and those who are the first to be held accountable in the company.

Fourth, focusing on "mechanism innovation." We require law enforcement teams to study and receive training first before conducting supervision and law enforcement. Law enforcement teams must also learn the criteria for judging major accident hazards. They are required to study them thoroughly before engaging in law enforcement, thereby improving the quality and ability of risk investigation. Additionally, we have designed a responsibility tracking system for safety supervision and law enforcement, which means "whoever checks is to be responsible." We have also developed an anonymous reporting and reward mechanism, focusing on solving problems such as failure to detect major hazards, failure to follow up on rectification after detecting major hazards, and inaccurate law enforcement. These efforts will help enhance the willingness and ability to uncover and solve problems.

The aforementioned four characteristics are something that I'd like to share. As for the progress of the special action, I'd like to say that all regions and relevant departments have completed the arrangements made in the first phase. Thirty-two provincial-level units and 35 member units of the State Council's Work Safety Commission have formulated and issued implementation plans for the special action in light of their actual conditions, and they have all made special deployments in this regard. Moreover, 13 industries have formulated and released 25 standards of judgment for identifying hidden dangers that can cause major accidents. The Office of the State Council's Work Safety Commission has set up 20 inspection teams to carry out supervision and inspection across the country. In addition, over 1,000 provincial-level working groups from all regions have been sent to prefecture-level cities to carry out supervision and inspection. Governments at all levels and all departments have inspected more than 1.2 million enterprises, ferreting out over 4.6 million hidden dangers, with more than 19,000 of them can cause major accidents. As a result, enterprises have been fined for more than 700 million yuan, and over 35,000 companies have been ordered to suspend production for rectification. Governments at all levels and all departments have also offered help and guidance for 307,000 enterprises and reward more than 4.5 million yuan for those who expose or offer clues. 

Going forward, the Office of the Work Safety Commission under the State Council will continue to step up efforts to strengthen management, investigation, supervision and assignment, as well as having talks and exposure. We will continue to strengthen performance assessment so as to ensure that the benefits of the special action will be fully delivered. 

Thank you.