Plan seeks better disaster coping

BEIJING - China will make consistent efforts to improve its ability to prevent and mitigate disasters during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) period, a senior official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Tuesday.

In doing so, the country's goal will be to keep the economic loss caused by natural disasters equal to less than 1.5 percent of its annual GDP.

On average, natural disasters have cost 2.38 percent of the country's GDP in the past 20 years, Fan Yida, chief engineer with the ministry's National Disaster Reduction Center, said at a forum on disaster prevention and relief held in Beijing.