Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

Green turning point

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-28 08:12

The Chinese economy bid farewell to years of double-digit growth but became more energy efficient than expected last year.

If high-speed economic growth is not supposed to return to China anytime soon, the country should seize the chance to accelerate its pursuit of long-term energy efficiency goals.

Buried deep in the annual report the National Bureau of Statistics issued on Thursday is a little surprise that the country's energy consumption per unit gross domestic product fell 4.59 percent in 2008. It is for the first time that the country has managed to reach an annual target of cutting energy intensity by at least 4 percent so as to raise its overall energy efficiency by 20 percent in the five-year period between 2006 and 2010.

Though the slowdown of China's economic growth from 13 percent in 2007 to 9 percent last year justified concerns that the global financial crisis and economic recession have hit the country too hard, the progress the country achieved in energy conservation still offered a good cause for optimism.

A 4.59-percent cut in energy intensity last year, compared to about 5-percent for the previous two years together, will give a needed shot in the arms of advocators who once worried that the country may have fallen too far behind its schedule of energy conservation. It indicates that China is still pressing ahead with its five-year energy saving plan.

Some people insisted that higher energy efficiency, largely as a result of the sudden deceleration of heavy industries later last year, was temporary and therefore reversible.

That may be part of the truth, but they failed to grasp the importance of the change of China's growth pattern to improve energy efficiency.

As the deepening global financial crisis and economic recession forces China to shift more rapidly away from its dependence on export for growth to boost domestic demand, it is well predictable that industrial restructuring in favor of energy conservation will only gather steam in coming years.

In fact, the annual statistical report also showed that the growth of the value added of the service sector last year has surpassed that of the industrial sector for the first time since 2003. A more robust service sector will not only better support domestic consumption but also help improve the country's energy efficiency.

Nevertheless, it is also premature to take for granted continuous improvement of energy efficiency as China speeds up industrial restructuring.

Chinese policymakers, who are busy with rolling out massive stimulus measures for various industries, must do their most to ensure that all the new investment will be carried out with a higher energy efficiency standard.

(China Daily 02/28/2009 page4)