The world of work injury insurance is complex and it is not possible for every scheme to draw on decades of experience. Many schemes, particularly in the East European reformed countries, have a relatively short and chequered history. Another group, including for example the People's Republic of China, is currently involved in a huge modernization process of their social security system which includes a fundamentally new plan for the work injury scheme. In these countries there is an essential need for international comparison and cross - border exchange of ideas and an obvious desire to derive solutions and ideas from the experience of other countries in order to construct or reconstruct a workable and stable system. I figured the best way to help these countries would be to provide a catalogue of exportable generalized factors and conditions that are relevant not only to a few but to the majority of countries wishing to introduce or reform a work injury scheme. With the aim of establishing such a catalogue the Technical Commission on Insurance against Employment Accidents and Occupational Diseases of the International Social Security Association (ISSA) has carried out a survey in order to examine the hypothesis that some key factors play a role in overcoming certain problems encountered in the reform or the introduction of a work injury scheme. The survey produced some enlightening results, especially with regard to our host country. This is not my assessment, but that of Ms. Wang Jianlun, former Vice Minister for Social Affairs of the People's Republic of China. When confronted with the first results of this survey at an ISSA conference in Cyprus in November of 2003, she called it a "great achievement" , which made it transparent that the Chinese reforms were going in the right direction.
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