Trade union and government officials yesterday jointly launched a national campaign to arm workers with knowledge and to create educational opportunities in the workplace.

Organizers said the campaign is part of the country's human resources development strategy, and is vital for upgrading China's competitiveness and national strength.

The ministries in charge of education, labour, science and technology, and enterprises joined forces with Sun's federation in the national campaign.

The Ministry of Education will launch a programme to train at least 300,000 skilled workers for the manufacturing sector in the next five years.

The effort , to be mainly focused on numerical-control technology and automobile repair, will be included in a national

action plan for education rejuvenation in the next five years, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

"Compared with our goals, the overall education level of China's workers is unsatisfactory," said Sun Baoshu, vice-chairman of All-China Federation of Trade Unions.

Sun said China is facing an acute lack of experienced skilled workers, which threatens to slow down development in both public and private sectors.

The federation statistics indicated that experienced workers only make up 3.5 per cent of the national total, lagging far behind the average level of 30 to 40 per cent in developed nations.

A federation official said the average Chinese workers' education duration is about eight years, largely lower than that of 14 years of education in developed countries. But official statistics show China's workers averaged at 12 years.

Because of a lack of welders, a natural gas project -- part of the West-to-East gas pipeline -- nearly ground to a halt in Hefei, provincial capital of Anhui.

Experienced skilled workers, who have mastered special skills to tackle knotty technological problems, edge into the top 10 most required professionals with monthly salaries exceeding 5,000 yuan (US$605) in Beijing.

Some enterprises in Shanghai have invited Japanese skilled workers annual salaries of up to 700,000 yuan (US$84,650).

Sun Baoshu said the shortage of such skills can lower quality and competitiveness in an enterprise, and even affect the growth of an entire industry or the national economy.

The call to arm workers with knowledge was echoed yesterday by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, China's watchdog over state-owned assets.

Its Deputy Director Wang Ruixiang said his administration will encourage state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under its supervision to initiate various training programs for staff beginning from 2004, so as to improve the workers' educational level substantially and cultivate a group of skilled workers.

"The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission is drafting guidelines to help the SOEs to initiate training projects, and the document will be delivered to the 189 SOEs in early 2004," Wang said.

The SOEs should make the training project part of their development strategy on the basis of their actual situation, and try to establish an effective system for exploring human resources in two years, he said.

Adequate funding is of importance for the training programme, Wang said. All SOEs should use an equivalent of 1.5 per cent of the workers' total salary for their further education, and personal ability and working performance should be stressed in the evaluation and promotion of the working staff.

There are nearly 10 million people working SOEs which are supervised by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, with about 80 per cent working in the front lines of manufacturing, trade or management. The SOEs as a whole, according to Wang, are still short of senior skilled workers and high-quality talents, and most workers are not well-educated.

"We should change the situation by providing more training opportunities to the workers," Wang said.

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