The National Bureau of Production Safety Supervision and Administration has set a timetable for solving problems related to the country's hundreds and thousands of small coal mines, the Economic Information Daily reported Tuesday.

Wang Xianzheng, deputy director of the administration, told a national meeting on coal science and technology, his administration aims to solve the small coal mine related problems within three years.

The registered legitimate small coal mines, which currently stand at 23,000 in China, will fall to 19,000, with the closing down of 4,000 of them at the end of this year, Wang said.

These coal mines have a combined coal output capacity of 120 million tons, he added.

The number of small coal mines will drop further after undergoing regrouping and mergers, he said.

Wang also revealed that at present more than 10,000 small coal mines have been ordered to suspend production for improvement because of lack of safe production licence applications.

Coal is China's major energy resource, accounting for 67 percent in the country's consumption structure of all primary energy resources.

In recent years, the Chinese government has issued a series of regulations and measures to improve coal mine safety.

But the situation is still grave. Coal mine accidents occur one after another throughout the country. Official statistics said that in the January-September period of this year, 4,228 people were killed in 2,337 coal mine accidents. Up to Oct. 10, there were 43 major accidents nationwide. A major accident means more than 10 deaths at one time.

Source: Xinhua