Foreign Minister Wang Yi vowed on Tuesday to improve efficiency in protecting Chinese citizens overseas as more people travel abroad.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi takes questions from the press during a news conference on the sidelines of the two sessions on Tuesday.?[Photo/Xinhua]

The Foreign Ministry will take measures, including enhancing security awareness among those traveling, setting up police-civilian cooperation centers in more countries, and shortening the response time, to protect Chinese people overseas, he said.

"To be honest, our resources and tools are limited and our capacity not yet up to the task," he told a news conference during the annual session of China's top legislature. "We will do everything on our part to provide consular protection and bear in mind that diplomacy must serve the people."

Last year, people from the Chinese mainland made 120 million outbound visits, a growth rate of almost 10 percent. More than 1 million Chinese are working overseas currently and over 2 million Chinese are studying overseas, according to data released by the Foreign Ministry.

"The best approach is prevention beforehand rather than remedy afterwards, so we will focus more on preventative consular protection." He said.

The ministry handled over 80,000 consulate protection cases last year, about one case every 6 minutes on average, Wang said.

Last year, China reached arrangements with 18 more countries to facilitate mutual travel and the number of countries that give visa free or visa upon landing arrival to Chinese passport holders has reached 54, he added.