China's natural gas industry will continue to grow at a high speed through 2025 with clean energy-driven power generation showing increasing importance, bringing opportunities to both foreign and domestic companies.

As the economy grows and the government carries out policies to raise clean energy use, China's natural gas demand will increase at an annual rate of 8 percent, reaching almost 400 billion cubic meters a year by 2025 when the market will become 2.5 times larger than it is today, according to an industrial white paper titled China's Age of Gas, released on Monday by General Electric Co, a US multinational conglomerate.

It says China's share of gas in the primary energy consumption mixture is expected to double from 4 percent at present to 8 percent in 2025 and non-hydrocarbon resources are expected to grow to 17 percent of primary energy in 2025.