By Luisa Lim BBC correspondent, Beijing

Fireworks accidents have risen considerably

It plans to shut down dangerous factories and those employing underage workers.

Officials admit there has been a resurgence in the illegal production of fireworks and with deadly results.

In the first nine months of the year 209 people were killed in fireworks explosions - an increase of twenty four percent from last year.

But repeated efforts to improve safety in the fireworks industry seem to have had little effect.

Lucrative

There has been an ongoing campaign to try to improve safety in the industry since an explosion in a school two years ago killed 42 people, most of them children.

But making fireworks is a major source of income in the countryside and many families produce fireworks in their own homes - a practice which the government has banned.

Enforcing the law is difficult and central directives are often ignored at lower levels.

The Xinhua news agency quotes the government as blaming grass-roots officials protecting local industry for the rise in illegal fireworks production.