Others News
- Re-institution of energy ministry urged
Date: 6-Mar-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
LAWMAKERS are urging the government to re-establish an energy ministry to better control the use of resources as China's energy needs continue to grow rapidly, Xinhua reported Sunday.
'China's energy supervision department is seriously understaffed. Without a professional and strong administrative team, laws and regulations cannot be well implemented,'Wang Weicheng, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's legislature, was quoted as saying by State-run Xinhua. The NPC kicked off its annual session yesterday.
Energy demand in China has been soaring as the economy has been blitzing ahead in recent years, leading the government to encourage its State-owned energy giants to buy overseas companies and lock in supplies of oil and natural gas.
To oversee all energy-related issues, China in 2005 set up a State Energy Leading Small Group, headed by Premier Wen Jiabao and including tops leaders from major ministries. It was the first time since 1993, when the Ministry of Energy was dissolved, that a central body was set up to deal with energy issues.
But the group isn't a permanent institution and isn't a policy- making body. It functions more like a high-level advisory council.
In China, changes in major government policy require a consensus among several government bodies, each looking out for its own interest, and could result in long delays of any results. Likewise, major investments by foreign investors in China or China's investments offshore also require approval from several ministries and could delay deals.
'Many countries, including the United States and Russia, have ministerial level departments on energy resources. The U.S. Department of Energy even has more than 10,000 staff members,'Wang, who is also a heat energy engineering professor at Qinghua University, was quoted as saying.
Analysts had expected the re-establishment of an energy ministry to be discussed at the NPC.
David Hurd, head of Asian oil and gas research at Deutsche Bank, said: 'I think that it's a very important issue. Right now no-one is in charge and everybody's got their own little fiefdom.'
The government missed its target for cutting energy consumption per unit of GDP by 4 percent last year, recording a reduction of only 1.23 percent, and Hurd said that a lack of coordination between various ministries with their differing interests may have been partly to blame.
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