Beijing said it will spend RMB50bn (US$600m) improving conditions in the country's deadly coal mines, state media reported, citing Zhao Tiechui, deputy head of the state administration of work safety. China Business News said allocations would come from both government and mining companies. The official death toll from coal mining-related accidents in the first 11 months of 2004 was 5,286, but deaths in thousands of the country's illegal mining operations often go unreported. The announced allocation is more than four times mine safety spending between 2000 and 2003, the weekly said.