Delegates of ethnic minorities walk into the Great Hall of the People to attend the opening of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China yesterday. - Xinhua

China will promote a conservation culture while moving to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, told the congress.

This is believed to be the first time China has called for a conservation culture in a keynote political document.

"(We will) promote a conservation culture by basically forming an energy and resource-efficient and environment-friendly structure of industries, pattern of growth and mode of consumption," Hu said.

"Awareness of conservation will be firmly established in the whole of society."

Hu said China will have a large-scale recycling economy and considerably increase the proportion of renewable energy sources in total energy consumption.

It will bring the discharge of major pollutants under effective control and notably improve ecological and environmental quality.

Hu said China's economic growth has been realized at an excessively high cost of resources and the environment, before listing other difficulties and problems that hinder China's development.

"We must give prominence to building a resource-conserving, environment-friendly society in our strategy for industrialization and modernization and get every organization and family to act accordingly," Hu said.

A report released last month by the national environment watchdog said China's overall environmental situation is still serious, with frequent pollution accidents affecting the quality of life for many people.

Last year, 842 pollution accidents were reported, including 482 water pollution cases, 232 air pollution cases, 45 cases caused by solid waste, 10 in the ocean and six involving noise and vibration damage.

The country's discharges of sulfur dioxide in 2006 reached 25.89 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.5 percent, the report said.

In September last year, two chemical plants in central China's Hunan Province illegally discharged a highly toxic arsenic compound into a tributary of China's second biggest freshwater lake, Dongting, leading to the suspension of water supplies to at least 80,000 local residents for a week.

A severe algae outbreak in Taihu, the third biggest freshwater lake in the country, at the end of May this year triggered a scare after the sudden outbreak of the smelly algae cut tap water supplies to more than one million residents in Wuxi, a city in eastern China's Jiangsu Province.

Hu's remarks aroused instant attention and commendation among congress delegates and China observers.

Pan Yue, vice director of the State Environmental Protection Administration and a congress delegate, said Hu ranked the promotion of  conservation as one of "the new and higher requirements" in building a moderately prosperous society, and every organization and family will be involved.