In 2003, the NDRC was established and an energy bureau was set up under it to take over the energy administration functions.

Soon, officials with the NDRC's energy bureau became embarrassed by their role-the administrative level of their bureau was lower than those ministry level or vice-ministry level agencies and enterprises such as Sinopec and the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.

The related administration functions have now been handled by a variety of ministries, resulting in a lack of planning for energy exploration, consumption, savings and reserves.

As a solution, the State Energy Leading Group was established directly under the State Council to help manage the energy industry in 2005, with Premier Wen Jiabao heading the group, and Ma Kai, Minister of the NDRC, acting as the office director.

Yet, since the main role of the group is to organize and coordinate, the overlapping and scattered administrative pattern remains unchanged.

"This scattered administrative pattern made it nearly impossible to plan energy strategies and failed to meet the demands for sustainable economic growth," said Wang Weicheng, a member of the NPC's Environmental and Resources Protection Committee. Wang submitted for a third time his proposal on setting up an energy ministry to the NPC in March this year.

Strategic importance

The energy ministry should cover all related energy organs and be entrusted with strong power to make decisions and work out energy strategies, said Zhao Xiaohui, an official with the Ministry of Information Industry.

"We should set up a new energy ministry as soon as possible," continued Zhao. "Because China has already lagged behind in terms of working out energy policies and strategies to meet huge domestic demands for energy and resources." China has to enhance its administrative efficiency and set up an energy ministry to facilitate asset restructuring and acquisition between enterprises, look for global cooperation for oil and gas exploration and stipulate related policies. "It's far from enough to rely on the government to play the coordinator," Zhao added.

Zhao believes a breakthrough would be possible only when the Central Government makes up its mind to overcome barriers between different ministries which do their best to guard their own interests and power. This is difficult in China, but it's good for the implementation of the state's development strategies as well as the long-term national interests, Zhao said.

China needs a minister of energy from the policy-making team, said Li Puming, a researcher with the NDRC's policy research office. He argued that in dialogues China has with other countries on energy issues, one energy minister instead of a dozen ministers from all energy-related departments will definitely do the job much more efficiently.

An International Energy Agency (IEA) report said China's increasing consumption would make it the world's largest consumer of energy by 2010. China's energy demand is projected to more than double from 2005 to 2030, the report said. As the second largest oil consumer after the United States, China has no authoritative energy administration organ, which made problems worse during recent global oil price hikes.

Difficulties to overcome

Despite all the calls about the importance of setting up a powerful, unified energy ministry, mountains of difficulties are ahead for the government to overcome.

To set up a new ministry means a power and personnel reshuffle among all these related energy organs. The biggest difficulty is how to make those already accustomed to and satisfied with their posts and duties satisfy again with their new roles, and to break the balance of power and restore it in terms of interests.

The 1988 institutional reform during which the former energy ministry was set up involved only four ministries, and today it could involve a dozen. It remains unknown whether officials from the above-mentioned ministries will disagree once the new energy ministry takes over their administration power.

It was reported that there were four candidate plans circulating before the leading group was formed in 2005. The idea of forming an energy leading group should win out because the other three, to set up an energy ministry, to form a state energy commission and to promote the NDRC's energy bureau as a vice-ministry level agency, all contain the possibility of claiming energy administration power from related ministries.

It still remains to be seen whether the energy ministry will acquire its due authority if it is eventually established. At present, the Central Government gives priority to energy efficiency and environmental protection while the local governments pursue economic growth. The authority and image of the energy ministry will be trimmed if it fails to coordinate between these government organs.