What they say

Many industries in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region have seen economic ups and downs due to fluctuations in coal related business and supply-demand dynamics. We must break the mold when upgrading traditional industries. We need to use ecological protection to force the region to resolutely eliminate backward production capacity and make room for high-quality development. Not a single coal mine is now allowed to operate in the Helan Mountain Nature Reserve. Those within the reserve have been shuttered. The region cannot move forward by overreliance on investments from the government and real estate. The only way forward is to change course and seek quality development.

Shi Taifeng,

Shandong province has a very extensive industrial structure. After efforts over the past two years to diversify the economy, the contribution of the secondary industry to the province's GDP has decreased to 65 percent from 70 percent. The province also saw the chemical sector's contribution to the GDP fall by 2 percent. But these ratios are still too high. In particular, we need to redouble efforts to reduce overreliance on coal. In the past two years, we reduced coal consumption by about 20 million metric tons. We will press ahead in the following two years and reduce use by another 130 million tons.