Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan stressed the importance of a healthy mining industry to the country's sustainable economy on Tuesday.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of China Mining 2004, an international symposium that was held in Beijing.

Zeng outlined four major tasks the mining industry has to focus on in the years to come to improve the sector, which is central to the country’s economic progress and social development.

The first task, he said, is to encourage environmental protection and strict economy in the use of resources.

The government will slow construction projects that involve heavy consumption of water and energy. Meanwhile, out-of-date production technologies should be replaced with environmentally friendly ones, he said.

Recycling should increase while the production of clean coal and environmental protection in mining areas must be encouraged, he said.

The second task is to strengthen domestic energy exploitation.

Zeng said that China is planning a feasible energy strategy and strengthening its mineral reserve survey and investigations into scarce resources.

Existing mines will be modernized, and the establishment of competitive mining groups and development of small mines supported.

He assured the more than 1,000 delegates present that the government will deepen its reform on the pay-for-use system on mineral resources, further regulate mining rights and tighten its management of the business environment so as to better defend the interests of mining enterprises.

China will also double its efforts to boost international trade in mineral products, encourage competitive domestic enterprises to join overseas exploitation and weave a solid and secure energy supply chain, he said.

Looking back on the past five decades, Zeng said that the industry's contribution to China's economic development could not be overestimated.

Currently about 92 percent of the country's energy, 80 percent of industrial raw materials and 70 percent of agricultural production materials come from its mineral resources.

To alleviate the pressure of urbanization and industrialization on demand, China will learn to make use of international markets and technical innovation to seek sustained development, he said.

China Mining 2004, the sixth of its kind, was initiated in 1999 and hosted by the Ministry of Land and Resources. This year's theme is "boosting the mining industry's common prosperity through global exchange and cooperation."

There is a huge demand for minerals in the country, but the average per capita consumption is far less than the world average, said Vice Minister of Land and Resources Wang Ming.

According to the China Mining Association, average consumption of standard coal was 1,011 kilograms per person in 2000. The world average is double that and average Americans consume 10 times that much.

Describing the nation's mineral and energy development as "very promising," Wang said the improvement of mining technologies and greater use of natural gas will help alleviate energy shortages.

Progress in oil exploitation and new findings in areas offshore and in western China will increase mineral resources, he added.

A total of 108 exploration licenses and 332 mining licenses were issued to foreign companies in 2003, representing a total investment of 1.45 billion yuan (US$175 million). Most focused on offshore oil, coal bed gas, gold, lead and bentomite.

Experts say the nation's mining industry may be driven to grow by the contradiction between supply and demand.

The mining industry should use a "two-way development strategy," said Zhu Xun, chairman of the China Mining Association. “Equal attention should be given to both exploitation and economizing with priority given to the latter.”

Funds are also being raised to finance the treatment of black lung, a disease that claims at least 5,000 lives a year.

The black lung therapy foundation has launched a project for miners nationwide. The miners, who are most vulnerable to the disease, will be able to receive timely treatment and prolong their lives, according to sources with the foundation at its first council after it was established in October 2003.

Black lung, or pneumoconiosis, is caused by coal dust inhaled in underground mines and is the severest occupational disease among miners. Its patients suffer from acute pains in the chest, a bad cough and often come down with colds. In the worst cases, people die of respiratory failure.

Experts say treatment has proven safe and effective in removing dust from the patients' lungs and restoring lung function. However, at least 200,000 people with black lung disease cannot afford it.

The foundation has started to raise funds at home and abroad, hoping to offer treatment for free to patients from poverty-stricken areas at a sanitarium in Beidaihe, a seaside resort in Hebei Province.

Six mining conglomerates based in Shanxi, Henan and Anhui provinces have promised to donate 5 million yuan each to the foundation.

According to incomplete statistics from the Ministry of Health, by the end of 2002, the most recent year that data are available, the number of black lung patients in China had topped 580,000; 46 percent of cases were from the coal mining industry. The ministry estimates the figure is increasing by at least 10,000 every year, causing a direct economic loss of 8 billion yuan (US$960 million).

(China.org.cn, Xinhua News Agency, China Daily November 17, 2004)