Report shows real price of growth

The environmental cost of China's economic growth in 2005 outweighed the gains, the author of a report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences told China Daily yesterday.

Shi Mingjun, a professor at the academy's Research Center on Fictitious Economy & Data Science, said the cost of such things as the exploitation of natural resources, ecological degradation and environmental pollution was 2.75 trillion yuan ($401.7 billion) in 2005, or 13.9 percent of the total output for the year.

The growth in GDP for the year was 2.24 trillion yuan.