Charity donations down 3.31% in 2012

Donations to Chinese charities have fallen for a second consecutive year, down 3.31 percent in 2012, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

A report released Saturday by the China Charity & Donation Information Center under the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) found Chinese charities collected 81.7 billion yuan ($13.34 billion) in donated money and goods last year.

The hardest-hit charities were the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) and Chinese Red Cross Foundation, which both saw their donations plummet more than 20 percent year-on-year.

Xu Jianzhong, a deputy director of the social welfare and charity promotion department at the MCA, attributed the decline to fewer major natural disasters and "accountability crises" plaguing domestic charities.

"Questions have been raised of the operations of some charities, whose credibility plummeted due to transparency, management and work efficiency problems," Xu said.

The RCSC received 2.19 billion yuan in donations last year, accounting for 2.68 percent of the country's total donations and down 24 percent from 2011, said the report.

Social organizations were the main benefactors, collecting more than 70 percent of total donations.

Companies remained the major donors, contributing 58 percent of all donations. Private companies gave 27.5 billion yuan and State-owned enterprises donated 10 billion yuan, or 21 percent of corporate donations.

Donations to Chinese charities from overseas continued their downward spiral last year by sinking to 6.95 billion yuan, down 25 percent from 2011.