The State Council has passed new safety regulations for the fireworks industry as manufacturers ramp up production for Lunar New Year. At a State Council meeting on Thursday chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao , members endorsed a timetable for manufacturers to comply with safety standards, the People's Daily said yesterday. Under the regulation, manufacturers who fail to meet the standards will be shut down by the end of March. Factories are required to mechanise all manual labour to reduce the chance of injuries to workers, and all family workshops are banned. The notice said the lighting of fireworks led to 10 major accidents and killed 37 people throughout the country in the first 10 months of last year. A further nine incidents involving illegal production killed 34 people in the same period. Zhang Liwei , from Hebei's Anping Fireworks Factory, which mainly exports to the US, Japan and Europe, said he expected some plants to shut under the new regulations. 'The number of fireworks factories has gone down every year. There'll be more going out of business with the regulation,' he said. According to the latest official data, there were 7,064 fireworks companies operating on the mainland in early 2004. The State Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine could not be reached yesterday for an update on factory numbers. In February last year, the administration released a survey of 120 fireworks enterprises from seven provinces that found that half failed to meet quality standards. Many major cities have in recent years relaxed long-standing bans on setting off fireworks that they imposed in the early 1990s on environmental and safety grounds. In Beijing, for example, the centuries-old custom of celebrating the Lunar New Year with a bang returned last year after a 12-year official absence. But restrictions are still in place, with areas near important historic sites, airports, kindergartens, nursing homes and forests off limits.