Introduction With the explosive economic growth and social development, China has caught the worldwide attention. Under such high speedy industralization, more international professionals start to pay close attention to occupational management system. This article tries to give some information in this aspect.

Methods The laws, regulations and standards related to occupational health in China were collected in the official websites, specifically at web of National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC, the former Ministry of Health, www.nhfpc.gov.cn) and the web of State Administration on Work Safety (SAWS, www.chinasafety.gov.cn). The major contents of these laws or regulations and current practices were introduced.

Results The two important laws in China are the Law on Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases and the Work Safety Law, in which the responsibility of employer, employee, the governmental agencies, the authorized occupational health service agency and other stakeholder have been described. NHFPC and SAWS, jointly with other related Departments, issued two important classified catalogues, namely, the Catalogue of Occupational Hazards; and the Classification and Catalogue of Occupational Diseases. Except for ensuring the safety and health workplaces, more work on both working environment monitoring/evaluation and health surveillance are required for employers. NHFPC and SAWS have issued a series of regulations and standards to ensure these work are properly implement. However, the occupational health problem in China seems still serious, not all enterprises did follow the requirements and the level of occupational hazards at some workplaces was not compliant with OELs, even the working environment is very poor in small-scale industries.

Conclusion The Chinese government should take great effect to enforce the employers to observe the laws and regulations. There is needed improvement of the Integrity and the systematicness of occupational health management system, while the economic is growing and governmental administrative structure and function is reforming.