Ex-environmental chief appointed NDRC deputy director
7/1/2007 10:55
A former environmental chief who took the blame for a river pollution
accident in 2005 and resigned after that has been appointed deputy head of the
National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
The NDRC's English
web-site lists the 57-year-old Xie Zhenhua, former director of the State
Environmental Protection Administration, as a vice minister who enjoys the
benefits of a ministerial official.
The NDRC is one of China's most powerful
agencies in charge of directing economic decisions. Now it has 12 deputy
directors.
China's cabinet approved Xie's resignation on Dec. 2, 2005, seven
years after he took office, following a chemical spill that seriously polluted
the country's northeastern Songhua River.
Xie was the highest-ranking
official to be removed from office for an environmental incident.
Around 100
tons of pollutants containing hazardous benzene spilled into the Songhua River
after a chemical plant explosion on Nov. 13 of 2005 in northeast China's Jilin
Province. The incident forced cities along the river, including Harbin, capital
of Heilongjiang Province and a city of more than three million people, to
temporarily suspend water supply.
As the pollutants were also expected to
flow into a major border river between China and Russia, diplomatic efforts and
environmental cooperation were conducted to minimize the impact of trans-border
pollution.
Xie, who began working for the NDRC at the end of 2006, is in
charge of environmental protection and energy saving, Saturday's 21st Century
Business Herald reported.
The report said Xie's department will be a new
major section of the NDRC's work.
Ma Kai, minister in charge of the NDRC,
said earlier that China faces severe problems relating to high energy
consumption and heavy environmental pollution, and has urged stronger efforts in
the two areas.
China had planned to cut its per unit domestic gross product
(GDP) energy consumption by four percent in 2006, as part of an ambitious plan
to reduce its energy consumption efficiency by 20 percent in the five years up
to 2010.
But officials failed to fulfil the four percent quota. Figures with
the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed the country's energy consumption
for unit GDP rose 0.8 percent, instead of a decrease in the first half of
2006.
Authorities used the words "very hard" to describe the difficulties
they are facing in reducing energy consumption to the target level.
The
central government has decided to make the reduction of energy consumption and
pollution the key to restructuring its economy in 2007, attaching unprecedented
importance to energy saving.
Analysts said the year 2007 will be vital to
achieving the five-year target, and one that must yield visible
results.
Xinhua
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