Cheng Siwei, former deputy chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress:

"As a giant energy producing and consuming country, China has seen a rapid development in both energy output and consumption in recent years. Last year, energy output equaled to 2.37 billion tons of standard coal, but consumption reached 2.65 billion tons. Similarly, growth rate of energy consumption was also higher than that of production last year.

"Coal accounts for 76 percent of the total production, and about 70 percent of the total consumption in the country's energy mix.