Energy and resources strain

    At present, the country's growth mode is still marked by high capital input, high resource consumption and high waste discharge.

    While strained resource supply still poses a bottleneck for the economy, the environment keeps deteriorating, the ecological system is degenerating and waste of resources stands at a strikingly high level. In this context, sustainable development is hard to be achieved.

    The huge population and resource shortages determine that we should not trek along the old rut of the extensive growth mode any more.

    The per head arable land in China is only 40 per cent of the world average and the pitiful figure is likely to slide further in the scenario of quickened pace of urbanization and further demographic increase.

    Our fresh-water resources are just a quarter of the world's average level, a situation compounded by uneven distribution. As a result, more than 400 Chinese cities have deficient water supplies, 110 seriously so.

    In addition, China's per capita shares of petroleum, natural gas and coal are respectively 11 per cent, 4.5 per cent and 79 per cent of the world average.

    As a result, the country is becoming increasingly dependent on overseas resources. In 2005, for instance, the country imported 136 million tons of oil, with the total consumption standing at 317 million tons.

    The environment will no longer be able to bear the pressure exercised by the extensive mode of economic growth.

    A total of 48.2 billion tons of industrial waste and domestic sewage, for example, were discharged in 2004. In the same year, the country's carbon dioxide emissions were second only to the United States.

    The assessment of the world countries' sustainable environment indices, which was issued by the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2005, placed China 133rd among 144 countries and regions.

    Ecological degeneration also means calls for changing the growth mode grow louder.

    Currently, for example, 3.56 million square kilometres of land in the country are suffering from soil erosion, accounting for 37 per cent of the nation's territory. About 1.74 million square kilometres of land have suffered desertification, and more is threatened. Overgrazing has given rise to serious grassland degeneration.

    The low resource utility rate also contributes to the urgency of changing the growth mode.

    In 2004, for instance, China churned out 4 per cent of the world's total GDP but consumed 8 per cent of the world's crude oil, 31 per cent of coal, 10 per cent of electricity, 30 per cent of iron ore, 30 per cent of steel, 19 per cent of aluminium, 20 per cent of copper and 40 per cent of cement.

    The current energy use in the country's eight high-energy consumption sectors such as steel, power generation and chemicals is 40 per cent higher than the world's most advanced level.

    Central-heating energy consumed in a given area of a Chinese apartment is two or three times more than in advanced countries.