Due to the nation's faster-than-expected economic growth, China will fail to meet its energy efficiency targets this year, a senior government official said.
China, with the world's biggest population of 1.3 billion people, had been aiming to cut energy consumption across the nation by 4% this year. But this was impossible following economic growth of 10.9% in the first half of the year, Yu Cong, director of the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Efficiency Center told the China Daily.
The central government set a growth forecast of around 8% this year but has been unable to control investment, with provincial authorities ignoring orders from Beijing in pursuit of local development.
"Local officials still pursue a high GDP growth as their political objective and neglect energy efficiency targets set by the central government," the newspaper cited Yu as saying. "All these negative facts make the four percent cut in energy consumption impossible."
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
