Governor of China's coal-rich Shanxi Province, Yu Youjun, apologized on Monday for the major coal mine accidents in 2007 and the province's failure to fulfill its energy-saving target.

The governor said on average 80 people died in the production of every 100 million tons of coal in Shanxi last year. This was down from 98 in 2005 and also below the national level.

"However, major mine accidents are still happening," he said." The accidents in July and November resulted in great loss of life and property of people." Yu made the remarks while delivering a report on the work of the government at the Shanxi provincial people's congress.

In July 53 people were killed in a blast at the Linjiazhuang Coal Mine of Lingshi County. In November 34 miners died in a fire and 24 others lost their lives in a gas explosion.

The governor also apologized for the failure to fulfill the energy-saving target. Shanxi had planned to reduce energy cost per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 5.6 percent in 2006. But only a 2 percent decrease was achieved.

"As the leader of the provincial government I shall take the responsibility for the failure and I feel restless to a great extent," Yu said in a sincere tone. "We must take more effective measures this year and achieve remarkable results," he said firmly.

Participants to the congress applauded the apology from the governor. It's not common for such a high-ranking official to say sorry openly in China. Sources told Xinhua that Yu had proposed to apologize for these issues while the province's top officials were discussing the draft of the report.

Shanxi has been closing small and dangerous mines in the past two years and is expected to have only 3,200 by June. There were 9,000 at one time.

In 2006 the Shanxi government fulfilled all their targets except for energy-saving set at the provincial people's congress early last year.

(Xinhua News Agency January 30, 2007)