Labor leaders in the capital's Central Business District have set an ambitious target to more than triple the number of workers covered by trade unions by the end of 2011.

Only 30 of its 3,000 companies have union representatives, covering less than 10 percent of the 200,000-strong workforce. "We aim to make that 30 percent this year," Li Guangbiao, president of the CBD's federation of trade unions, told METRO.

In contrast, statistics from the Beijing Municipal Federation of Trade Unions show that 92 percent of the 611 top overseas firms with Beijing headquarters have unions.