"China's energy development emphasizes thrift, cleanliness and safety," says the white paper titled "China's Energy Conditions and Policies," under the joint compilation of the Energy Bureau and the Institute of Macro Economics, both under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Officials from the NDRC were interviewed by Xinhua News Agency on issues about the white paper. Here are excerpts of the interview.

This white paper titled "China's Energy Conditions and Policies" is China's first white paper in the arena of energy in almost a decade. Can you elaborate on the background and guidance of this white paper?

Since China adopted its reform and opening-up policies in 1978, the Chinese Government has issued two white papers on the energy issue in 1995 and 1997, respectively. Yet these two white papers were more of an annual report on an industrial sector issued by a government department. Until recently, China has been faced with the strong need to publicize a comprehensive report on its energy strategies and policies and make it known to the world.

The white paper draws the general picture of the development of the Chinese energy industry and expounds China's energy development policies.

How is this white paper different from published blueprints and policies?

This white paper will guarantee the realization of China's energy outlines in policy as well as offering a window to the international community to comprehensively learn China's energy policies, including goals, supplies, efforts in conservation, development of new technologies and international cooperation in this regard. The white paper is available in multilanguage versions of Chinese, English, French, Russian, German, Arabic, Japanese and Spanish. This white paper will increase the transparency of China's energy policies and make it easier for the international community to understand China's energy sector and policies more systematically and comprehensively. In light of this, China could conduct more international exchanges and cooperation on energy.

The NDRC also streamlined its industry policy on natural gas in September 2007 and published China's first national coal industry policy last November, which are necessary supplements to the white paper.

Natural resources are needed for the development of an energy industry. As the world's second largest energy producer, what are the distribution features of China's energy resources?

The features of distribution of China's energy resources can be summarized as a large reservoir, low per-capita amount, uneven distribution in different regions and difficult exploitation conditions.

Accompanying the economic boom in China in recent years, the energy sector, as an industry underpinning rapid economic growth, has also achieved enormous developments. Can you specify these achievements?

First is strengthened capacity to meet demand. Through efforts over the last few decades the energy sector in China has formed a supply structure with coal as the major energy source and electricity as the pillar energy form with comprehensive development of oil, natural gas and renewable energy sources.

Second is fast progress in energy conservation.

Third is an active effort in environmental protection. China has been developing new energy technology and improving the market environment for energy trade by implementing several reforms and formulating laws on energy.

Despite the quick development of the energy sector in China, some outstanding problems remain, such as the low efficiency of energy consumption, an unscientific mix in energy structure, mounting pressure of environmental protection, underdeveloped market schemes and insufficient emergency reaction systems. The Chinese Government realizes that these problems are problems in development and it has confidence and the capacity to solve all these problems.

In retrospect, developed countries wasted a large amount of resources in the process of their industrialization. The Chinese Government has vowed not to repeat these old paths. How does China plan to implement its energy development strategies?

Learning from the experience of other countries, China has decided that it will explore a new path of development featuring higher energy efficiency, new technologies, and low energy consumption and environmental pollution.

China's future energy strategy consists of the goals of strengthening energy conservation, relying mainly on domestic supplies, exploring new energy sources, giving a bigger role to high technology, protecting the environment, increasing international cooperation and building a stable, economic, clean and safe energy supply network. This energy development strategy is essential to China's efforts to construct a modern energy system.

How are these goals going to be implemented?

First, China regards energy conservation as a basic state policy. Concrete measures include encouraging exploration of new energies, promoting industrial upgrades, offering incentives for the development of conservation technologies and products, improving the management of energy and promulgating more laws and regulations on energy conservation. All these measures are to enhance the efficiency of energy consumption in China.

Second, China will mainly rely on domestic energy supplies to meet growing market demand through boosting its domestic supply capacity.

Third, China will develop multiple energy resources, including coal, oil, natural gas, coal bed methane, hydropower, nuclear power and new substitute energies. Thus the energy mix in China could be improved and stable supply could be guaranteed.

Fourth, China will draw on newly developed energy technologies and foster its innovation capacity to explore new ways of energy exploration. Chinese companies are expected to digest imported technologies and produce machinery that will raise energy efficiency with proprietary key technologies.

Fifth, China will further coordinate the development of its energy sector with the protection of the environment by establishing an environment-friendly society featuring energy conservation and achieving sustainable development.

Last but not least, more efforts will be put into establishing international cooperation on energy use on the basis of equality and mutual benefit and toward the goal of energy security and stability in the world.

Large-scale exploration of energy is a major reason behind ecological deterioration and environmental pollution. As a responsible developing country, how has China coordinated its energy sector growth with environmental protection?

It is true that large-scale exploration of energy often leads to ecological deterioration and environmental pollution. The Chinese Government has attached enormous importance to environmental protection and global climate change and has set environmental protection as a basic state policy. As a member country of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, China was also the first developing country to publish a national plan of action on climate change in 2007, which included a series of policies and measures to protect the environment and deal with climate change.

China has set goals to curb the trend of environmental degradation, reduce emissions of major pollutants by 10 percent and effectively control greenhouse gas emissions between 2006 and 2010. Other efforts include streamlining the industrial mix and energy mix and promoting energy conservation.

In his report at the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Hu Jintao said that efforts should be made to "improve China's capacity for independent innovation as well as energy and environmental conservation." The recent white paper on energy has also put science and technology as important parts of China's energy development strategy. How does China plan to use new technologies to upgrade its energy sector?

First of all, China will promote the use of energy conservation technologies. Key areas are energy-consuming industries, transportation industries and the construction industry. Second, China will conduct technological upgrades on clean coal technologies, nuclear power technologies, exploitation of oil and natural gas in complex geographical conditions and exploration of low-grade deposits of oil and natural gas, the use of renewable energy and long-distance power transmission. Third, China will develop machinery for the comprehensive exploitation and utilization of coal bed, the coal chemical industry, power generators using clean energies, wind power generators, nuclear power generators and exploitation, drilling and transportation equipment for oil and natural gas. Fourth, China will intensify studies on the latest energy technologies, including hydrogen and fuel cells, distributed power generation technologies, nuclear power technologies and the usage of natural gas hydrates. Fifth, China will increase studies on related basic sciences.

At the G8 summit of 2006, Hu Jintao pointed out that the international community should make joint efforts to ensure global energy security. How will the Chinese Government intensify mutually beneficial international energy cooperation?

China's development and world prosperity is one and the same. Seeking peace, cooperation and development are goals of countries around the world and are in line with the trends of human society development. Energy industry development in China has not only satisfied domestic demand for growth but also provided opportunities for various countries to profit.

In terms of bringing cooperators to China, the country will continue the policies of encouraging cooperation in the exploration and exploitation of oil and natural gas, offer incentives to foreign investment in exploring non-traditional energy resources, introduce more foreign investment in the operation of power stations, and import advanced technologies and high-level managers.

China will enlarge its trade volume of energy in the international market and help to maintain the stability of the international market. China's energy imports and exports will comply with fair trade principles and its commitments to the World Trade Organization. The government encourages Chinese companies to take part in cooperation projects on the basis of the principles of a market economy, participate in infrastructure construction projects abroad and steadily increase partnership projects on energy project services.