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.

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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.

Chen Zhenlin, director of the China Meteorological Administration's emergency response, disaster mitigation and public services department, said on Tuesday that meteorological disasters claimed 3,973 lives and affected about 48.4 million hectares of farmland from 1991 to 2009. That resulted in direct economic losses of nearly 203 billion yuan ($ 31 billion).

In the next five years, the government will work to offer aid within 12 hours to people harmed by natural disasters, Fan said. Current rules stipulate that people in places struck by disasters should be guaranteed necessary supplies such as water and food within 24 hours of the occurrence of the disaster.

To respond to such calamities more effectively, China is expected to give about 2.75 million people training in disaster prevention and emergency management by the end of 2015, Fan said.

Fan made the remarks on the eve of China's Disaster Prevention and Reduction Day, which has been observed on May 12 since 2009. The date was chosen because it is the anniversary of the magnitude-8.0 earthquake that struck Sichuan province in 2008, leaving nearly 80,000 people dead or missing.

China has gone far in establishing a comprehensive system to manage and cope with natural disasters. Still, the country can do more to forecast disasters and mitigate the harm they cause, while cities and towns can become better at coping with disasters, according to Qu Shuhui, disciplinary inspection head of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Qu said the equipment needed to forecast disasters is not as widespread as it should be. And, at times, information about impending disasters cannot be collected quickly enough to make forecasts effective.

Making matters worse, places prone to natural disasters do not contain enough public shelters, Qu said. He noted there aren't even official numbers showing how many such shelters exist.

The government should do more to teach people the best ways to protect themselves in natural disasters, said Zheng Gongcheng, a social security expert with the Renmin University of China and a deputy director with the National Disaster Reduction Commission.