China reported 4.39 million criminal cases in 2003, about the same as in 2002, with the number of serious crimes, including bombings poisonings, arsons, rapes, murders and robberies, markedly down from the previous year.

Statistics released by the Public Security Ministry on Monday show bombings, poisonings and arsons fell last year, respectively, by 32.3 percent, 29.7 percent and 24.5 percent from the previous year.

The numbers of rapes, murders and robberies also dropped 9.6 percent, 7.2 percent and 4.2 percent respectively from those in 2002.

But the ministry failed to disclose specific figures.

Sun Yongbo, the ministry's spokesman, said the decrease marked an end to the rapid rise of crime in recent years and a continued progress in law and order.

A survey among 100,000 people by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last year showed 91.2 percent of people considered themselves "safe" or "basically safe", but the ratio was only 84.1 percent in a similar 2002 survey.

The statistics also show that police resolved more than 2.34 million criminal cases last year, including 20,000 long-standing cases with the assistance of fingerprint authentication.

Meanwhile, the police broke 116 underground organizations and arrested more than 150,000 people who had been at large for a longtime, by posting specific information on the Internet to garner more information.

In addition, the country's public security departments also seized 3,999 stowaways and arrested 774 people traffickers last year, down 24 percent and 38 percent respectively from the previous year.

(Xinhua News Agency February 24, 2004)