Some 700,000 Chinese workers suffered occupational diseases last year and 80 percent of them have pneumoconiosis, a typical disease for coal miners, said the country's top legislature.

"The rate of occupational disease has been on the rise since 2005," Huang Zhendong, director of the Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, was quoted by Saturday's China Daily as saying.

According to Huang, a total of 670,000 workers suffer work diseases in 2006, 30,000 less than that in 2008. The number of new occupational disease cases in 2006 and 2007 stood at 11,159 and 14,296 respectively.

Most of such diseases were reported in small and medium-sized firms, Huang said in an address to the bimonthly session of the 11th NPC Standing Committee.

Huang's report was based on the findings of an NPC investigation in how the Trade Union Law was being implemented in Liaoning, Jiangsu, Hunan, Guangdong and Sichuan provinces, as well as Shanghai.