The proposal was submitted by Tan Bowen and five others to the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

Tan said that China’s utilizable wind power resources have been verified at 253 million kilowatts, with Inner Mongolia accounting for 100 million kw.

He said, “Developing new energy, particularly wind power, is vital to protecting China’s ecological environment, solving the problem of electricity supply in remote areas, and improving the country’s energy use conditions in urban and rural areas.”

He said that faster development of Inner Mongolia’s wind power industry and increasing its wind power supply to the power grid will supply more clean energy to the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan area, one of the most developed regions in China, and help the area reduce coal consumption and conserve water, thus effectively improving air conditions in the Beijing area.

In a bid to accelerate wind power development in Inner Mongolia, Tan and other members of the CPPCC National Committee called for measures to lower tax rates on wind power generation, and efforts to improve technological standards for producing windmill parts and reduce production costs.

They also proposed formulating a preferential credit policy on fixed asset investments in support of the development of wind power and other types of renewable energy resources.

(Xinhua 03/10/2001)