Premier Wen heads up team to fight high energy consumption, pollution

Source: Xinhuanet | 04-28-2007 08:17

BEIJING, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan will head up a team tasked with ensuring the country's energy consumption and pollution reduction targets stated in the Chinese government's 2006-2010 five-year plan are met.

At a meeting of the State Council on Wednesday, Wen said the country is in grave need of cutting energy consumption and pollution as sectors with high energy consumption and high pollution are still having rapid growth.

Wen said the government should regard it as an "important responsibility" and play a "dominant role" in addressing the issue.

He also called on enterprises to strictly abide by environmental protection laws and regulations.

China has set a goal to slash its energy consumption per unit of domestic gross product by 20 percent and the discharges of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) by 10 percent between 2006 and 2010.

However, the country only lowered its energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product by 1.2 percent last year, well short of its four percent target.

Editor:Du Xiaodan