Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan on Thursday urged local governments to ensure migrant workers are paid their wages before the traditional Chinese family holiday of Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 18 this year.

Zeng was speaking at a teleconference of local government leaders to whom Premier Wen Jiabao had written an instruction, urging strict law enforcement and penalties of those who fail to pay the salaries of the migrant workers.

Zeng said local governments should set up channels to receive migrants' complaints and also strengthen daily supervision.

It's one of the government priorities to ensure the hardworking migrant workers get their wages on time and have a good time during the lunar new year holiday, he said.

Zeng said the government had helped millions of migrants reclaim most of their back wages amounting to 33 billion (US$4.25 billion), which had accumulated before 2003.

He urged local governments to establish a unified credibility system of all the companies which employed migrant workers and expose those which failed to pay migrants their wages in time.

(Xinhua News Agency January 26, 2007)