Hainan Province in south China is to use the full force of law to collect overdue social insurance premium from enterprises, a key provincial official was quoted by China as saying.

Gao Ronghai, director of the Hainan Provincial Social Security Bureau, said some businesses have failed to pay the social insurance premium, which is required by a draft regulation passed early in 1999 by the State Council. the bureau will use the full force of law to collect the overdue payments.

Social insurance premium is required to be paid according to a draft regulation passed early in 1999 by the State Council. A penalty of 1,000 to 10,000 yuan (120 to 1,200 US dollars) is to be carried out if any enterprise fails the payment.

According to China Daily, firms now owe more than 490 million yuan (59 million US dollars) just for endowment insurance alone.

Following a bureau-sponsored training course on social insurance that began last week, 12 businesses have paid more than 2 million yuan (241,000 US dollars) that was owned the bureau.

Hainan Province has been using social insurance payments since 1991 to cover endowments, industrial accidents, unemployment and medical care insurance.

Regional laws were enacted in 1992 to strengthen the social insurance system, meant to benefit both enterprises and their employees.

According to official statistics, all provincial social insurance companies have paid endowment insurance of 1.355 billion yuan (163.3 million US dollars).

Last year, 293 million yuan (35.3 million US dollars) in pensions were paid to 208,000 retired workers of State-owned enterprises, which accounts for 70.65 percent of the total.