BEIJING - China's voluntary blood donors can reimburse their payments for blood usage outside the places where they donate blood, according to a circular by the Health Ministry on Friday for encouraging voluntary blood donation.

The policy is now only for different places in the same provincial-level regions, however, the ministry encourages provinces to promote inter-provincial reimbursements for blood usage if possible.

The ministry urged blood collection stations, health care institutions and other related departments to appoint dedicated persons to examine the reimbursements, and not to deny the reimbursements with the excuse that the blood users had not donated their blood in local areas.

A total of 4,164 tons of blood was donated by 12.32 million voluntary person-times in 2011 in China, with the increases of 3.71 percent and 5.18 percent respectively compared to 2010, according to the Ministry.

However, some areas are still in short supply of blood, said the ministry, adding that about 120,000 blood donators are needed everyday by all the country's health care institutions in 2015.