China to Cut 1 Million Coal Miners by Year 2000 : Industry: Laid off workers would get jobs from conversion to non-coal businesses, official paper reports.

China’s coal industry will eliminate over 1 million miners by the end of the century and find jobs for them by developing spin-off businesses, the official Economic Daily reported.

By the year 2000, China’s coal mining companies should gain more than half their revenue from non-coal business, including electricity, transport and raw materials, the paper said, citing Pu Hongjiu, vice minister of the coal industry.

The new targets come a month after Beijing announced in the state-run press that it will stop setting artificially low prices for coal next year and start phasing out the huge subsidies it pays each year to cover coal mining losses.

Pu told a national meeting that 300,000 of the nation’s 3.6 million miners will lose their jobs by 1995 and another 700,000 by the end of the century, the paper said.

Beijing’s modest restructuring of loss-making state firms over the last decade has already sparked pockets of labor unrest. The ministry expects that fast development of non-coal business will mean none of the miners will be forced on to the streets.

Pu said non-coal revenue at coal-mining firms should increase to $9.5 billion by the year 2000, the paper said. That would be higher than expected, it said.

The industry’s main spin-off businesses are currently power plants, transportation and metals production facilities, building materials and chemicals, the paper said. Light industry and services are also common, it said.