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 December 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
November 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 News Agency January 7, 2007)
