China has a short-fall of more than 600,000 operators of numerical control machine tools, who are much in demand with the country's fast growing economy, according to the organizing committee of the first China Numerical Control Competition (CNCC 2004) which ended Wednesday.

Song Jian, a senior official with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MOLSS), and also the secretary general of the organizing committee, said workers with numerical control skills remain scarce, as the application of the technology has just been popularized in China's manufacturing sector.

Operators of numerical control machine tools, who combine theoretical knowledge with practical technical skills, account for less than 5 percent of the staff in China's manufacturing businesses.

Aiming to better cultivate skilled workers, CNCC 2004 was jointly sponsored by six governmental agencies, including the MOLSS, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Zhang Xiaojian, MOLSS's vice minister, said that about 200,000 candidates from China's 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, have participated in the event.