China to evaluate local officials
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-06-19 09:14
China is encouraging officials to spare some of their attention, usually
focused on GDP growth, for energy conservation.
Zhejiang, an
economically booming province in the country's east, has decided to add energy
efficiency to the evaluation system on local officials' performance.
Eleven mayors and 58 county heads in the province have recently been
appointed as top officials in charge of local energy-saving work.
The
new indicator is intended to encourage officials to score more by lowering
enterprises' costs, promoting technological innovation and adjusting industrial
structures for energy and ecological security, according to Lu Zushan, the
province's governor.
The coastal province, like most developed areas in
the country, is suffering from a sharp conflict between energy shortage and
galloping economy.
The average per capita GDP in Zhejiang exceeded 3,400
U.S. dollars in 2005, while 95 percent of its resources relied on imports or
transfer from other places in China.
The province has set a goal which
requires the energy consumption per unit of GDP in 2010 decline by 15 percent
from 2005, Lu said.
Some government officials used to be indifferent to
energy conservation, as exemplified by their ignorance of energy wasting in
government buildings they worked every day.
A survey showed that the
daily per capita electricity consumption by the provincial administration center
building in 2004 was nine times that by residential buildings.
The
building was later driven to upgrade its energy-saving measures, including
raising the temperatures of air-conditions, using central heating system and
power-saving lights.
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