Urgent need to save energy

China's crude oil imports are now 55.2 percent of its total energy consumption and for the first time surpass the 53.5 percent of the United States, which points to the increasingly heavy pressure its development faces.

Statistics from the Ministry of Information and Industrial Technology reveal that domestic apparent consumption of petroleum reached 198 million tons, an increase of 10.3 percent over the same period last year and the apparent consumption of crude oil increased 8.5 percent over the same period last year.

Despite the 1.6 percentage point drop in the rate of increase compared with the first months of this year, the growth is still sharp, outpacing that of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).