China's Ministry of Civil Affairs has worked out a plan to improve its child welfare service to cover both orphans and minors lacking parental care in the 2006-2010 period.

At a meeting on improving child welfare service Thursday, Dou Yupei, vice minister of Civil Affairs, said that under new circumstances, the state will not only taking care of orphans and abandoned babies, who are sheltered by welfare institutions, but also vagrant children and minors whose parents are incarcerated.

China has now 573,000 orphans, but its 808 child welfare institutions have only sheltered 66,000 of them.

On March 29, 15 government departments, including the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance, jointly issued a document on enhancing China's welfare service for orphans and helpless minors, urging governments at various levels to incorporate the work into their respective five-year development plan, and to ensure all minors have better chances to develop themselves.