Green turning point

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.