China is under great pressure and facing many challenges if it
hopes to achieve its goal of cutting by 20 percent the amount of
energy it uses to produce a unit of GDP, according to an official
of the State Council research center.
Energy consumption by industries and by people has soared since
the beginning of the decade and the amount of energy used to create
a unit of GDP remains 40 percent higher than in advanced countries,
Feng Fei, director of the Industry Department of the Development
Research Center of the State Council.
Last year China said it hoped to cut the amount of energy needed
to produce a unit of GDP by 20 percent by the end of the decade.
This is aimed at making the country much more efficient in the use
of energy.
Feng says, the output of high energy-consuming products surged
in the first five years of the decade, with steel up 187 percent,
cement up 79 percent and glass up 119 percent. The number of
private cars in China jumped almost six fold in the first half of
the decade. In the five years China's industrial sector energy
consumption rose by an equivalent of 630 million tons of coal.
China also lags behind other countries when it comes to
recycling, said Feng. Each year, the value of un-recycled materials
is more than 30 billion yuan (US$3.75 billion).
Feng says to achieve its energy efficiency goals China should
limit production in high energy-consuming sectors and slow down its
economic growth to 7.5 percent. He also wants to see the government
fund research on energy efficiency.
Government statistics show that in the first five years of the
decade, the average annual growth in China's energy consumption was
six percentage points higher than the country's economic growth
rate which averaged just above 10 percent a year.
(Xinhua News Agency February 2, 2007)
