Some 223 million Chinese were covered by the urban basic medical insurance program as of 2007, up 41.8 percent year-on-year, officials said.

Last year saw a 225.7 billion yuan (US$32.24 billion) gain in China's urban basic medical insurance fund, up 29.21 percent year-on- year, according to a report jointly released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the National Bureau of Statistics.

Urban basic endowment insurance, one of the major social security plans that covered 201 million people as of 2007, increased by 0.73 percent over the previous year.

Some 121.73 million people had purchased work injury insurance as of 2007, up 18.55 percent over the previous year.

(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2008)