BEIJING - China will shut down about 20,000 illegal and unsafe mines by 2015 in an effort to pursue safe mining, an official said Wednesday.

Yang Dongliang, director of the State Administration of Work Safety, said at a work conference on mine safety that there are more than 90,000 non-coal mines across China, 95 percent of which are small mines.

"The designs of most small mines are substandard and their mining techniques are outdated, so they don't have sufficient capability to ensure safe mine production," Yang said.

The campaign against unsafe mines will focus on shutting down mines in serious violation of the law, including mines without required licenses, mines that illegally resume production after being ordered to shut down and mines that conduct mining activities beyond their approved areas.

The campaign will also target mines with severe safety hazards, those that fall short of safe production requirements and mines with outdated techniques and weak safety protection capabilities, according to Yang.

The country will protect mines with advanced technologies and eliminate outdated ones, encourage large, advanced mines to acquire other mines and popularize a batch of state-of-the-art mining technologies, Yang said.