The State Council has given its approval for China’s coal-rich Shanxi province to become a reform trial zone so as to change its over-dependence on resources exploitation, Xinhua News Agency reported on Dec 14.
This means that the province will become one of the nine trial zones that the country has established, and it is the first trial area that will cover an entire province.
Peng Sen, Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said at a press conference on Dec 13 that the goal of the zone is to transform the conventional industries and strike a balance among the agricultural, industrial and tertiary sectors in Shanxi.
He also said that this part of the province’s reform is significantly different from previous initiatives, as it is closely related to production, and that “good experiences and practices have been learned from other trial zones and will be given priority when initiatives are considered for implementation in Shanxi.”
According to the report, the annual coal production of Shanxi was 10 million tonnes over the past 60 years, 75 percent of which was transported to regions all over the country. In addition, the industrial structure of Shanxi – with the four sectors of coal, hard coke, metallurgy and electricity – make up 80 percent of the total value of its gross output.
Lin Boqiang, the director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times that such an industrial structure relies heavily on the market outside the province.
“If the international or national economy encounters some development problems, the entire economic growth of Shanxi also gets into trouble.” Lin said.
Niu Renliang, Vice Governor of Shanxi, said that the province has retained an unsustainable industrial structure, adding that Shanxi has powered the economic development of other regions, but with heavy economic, social and environmental consequences for itself.
The coal-based economy had not brought prosperity to the people of Shanxi Province, according to the Beijing News’ report, and residents have not benefited from the mining exploitation economy. The urban per capita disposable income and rural net income rank in the last 10 among China’s 31 provincial-level areas.
For every tonne of coal extracted in the province, 2.48 tonnes of water is polluted, and coal mining has resulted in 20,000 square kilometers of land at risk of subsidence, accounting for one eighth of the province’s total area.
The energy consumption and sulfur dioxide emission in Shanxi is twice that of the national level, the report said.
Source: Coal Crushing Plant
