The total amount of defaulted farmer-workers' wages was 16 billion yuan (1.93 billion US dollars) in 2003, while 98.4 percent had been paid back by the end of June this year, Vice Minister of Construction of China Huang Wei said in Beijing Thursday.

Huang said there were 32.3 billion yuan (3.91 billion US dollars) defaulted on farm workers' wages before 2003 with 87.4 percent of that now repaid. These arrearage was expected to be solved by the end of this year. In arrear, the amount of long-term default was relatively small.

He said the defaulted project cost and social credit crisis resulted in the default on farmer-workers' wages. Meanwhile, China should perfect relative legislation systems to guide business activities.

There are 38 million construction workers currently with more than 30 million being part-time farmers. If the scale of defaulted project cost and wages expand, the interest of these workers would be affected which might cause unstability of the society.

Huang said China will solve the problem at the root by establishing relative laws. He expected nine corresponding pieces of legislation be issued by the end of this year.

Source: Xinhua