国内英语新闻:China's revised rules on work-related injury insurance to take effect on Jan. 1

BEIJING, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- A revised version of China's Regulation on Work-Related Injury Insurance will take effect Saturday, raising compensation standards while expanding the coverage to more organizations.

The previous regulation stipulated that the compensation to families of workers who die on the posts is no more than five times the average annual salary in the previous year. The sum varies depending on the regions where the workers are working.

Under the current system, the national average compensation is about 100,000 yuan, but the lowest regional average compensation is about 40,000 yuan.

The new regulation raises the compensation to 20 times the national annual disposable income for urbanites per capita in the previous year, which means about 340,000 yuan according to 2009 statistics.

In addition, the revised regulation covers the country's public institutions, social groups, non-profit grass-root organizations, foundations, law firms and accounting firms.

Previously, the rules only include enterprises and small businesses and their employees in the system.