Coal efficiency set to get boost

The authorities aim to boost the efficient use of coal supplies by raising the average recovery rate of the resource in the country from about 30 percent currently to at least 50 percent by 2010, a senior government official has said.

The country's top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), had in 2006 set the goal of a 40 percent coal recovery rate by the end of the decade, Zhao Xiaoping, deputy director of the National Energy Administration (NEA) under the NDRC, said to participants of the 2009 China Industrial Development Forum on Saturday.

China is the world's largest coal producer and consumer. Its dependence on coal continues amid the occurrence of coal mine accidents and its use of the resource is said to be inefficient compared with those of other countries - the coal recovery rate in developed countries including the United States, Australia, Germany and Canada is reportedly about 80 percent.