Timber-processing hub in Shandong bolsters safe production

In East China's Shandong province, Yanshi town is a renowned wood-processing hub whose products are being sold to more than 20 provincial-level regions in the country, creating over 10,000 jobs to local residents.

The town, now with over 200 wood-cutting factories, 70-odd board processing enterprises, more than 80 furniture factories, and 30-plus wood slag factories, possess a complete industrial chain integrating wood cutting, board processing, furniture production and product sales.

Zhang Qingjun, manager of Juancheng Tianya Furniture Co Ltd, said the town, with over 57,600 residents, enjoys booming wood-processing business which serves as its traditional pillarindustry, and has experienced fast development in recent years.

However, with the rapid expansion of the industry, safety issues have become increasingly outstanding, he said.

To this end, Yanshi town has continuously strengthened safe production supervision, in a bid to ensure the healthy and stable development of the timber processing industry and help boost local rural vitalization, said Ma Faming, deputy government head of Yanshi town who is in charge of safety production supervision.

He said the town is taking a four-pronged approach to enhance the job — strict law enforcement to guard the bottom line of safe production, on-site checks to treat hidden dangers, promotion of the rule of law for a conducive atmosphere, and assigning special personnel to normalize safe production.

"Our unique practice is that during law enforcement inspections, we fully leverage the role of experts and entrust third-party organizations to provide technical guidance on hidden dangers among the enterprises, offering risk quantification assessments for the whole production and operation process," Ma said.

"Moreover, we have also formulated a safe-production responsibility system that connects all Party and government leaders, staff, and enterprises, ensuring that each of the town's firms works closely with our cadres and township employees, with each Wednesday designated as a working day for our staff to visit them for on-site inquiries," he said.

Through these effective measures, the safe production of the town's wood processing industry has continued to improve, providing strong guarantees for the healthy development of the local economy and social progress, Ma added.

Please contact the writer at hanjingyan@chinadaily.com.cn