THE 11TH FIVE-YEAR PLAN FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (2006–2010)

The 11th Five-Year Plan has outlined the following binding committments:

Economic Growth:
GDP up 7.5 percent annually from 18.2 trillion yuan in 2005 to 26.1 trillion yuan in 2010;
Per capita GDP up 6.6 percent annually from 13,985 yuan in 2005 to 19,270 yuan in 2010.
 
Economic structure:
Share of service industry's value added to GDP up from 40.3 percent in 2005 to 43.3 percent in 2010;
Share of employment in service industry up from 31.3 percent to 35.3 percent in 2010;
Share of R&D spending out of total GDP up from 1.3 percent in 2005 to 2 percent in 2010;
Urbanization rate up from 43 percent in 2005 to 47 percent in 2010.
 
Population, resources, environment:
Population up from 1.30756 billion in 2005 to 1.36000 billion in 2010;
Energy consumption per unit of GDP down 20 percent in five years;
Water consumption per unit of industrial added value down 30 percent in five years;
Coefficient of effective use of water for irrigation up from 0.45 percent in 2005 to 0.5 percent in 2010;
Rate of comprehensive use of solid industrial waste up from 55.8 percent in 2005 to 60 percent in 2010;
Total acreage of cultivated land down from 122 million hectares in 2005 to 120 million in 2010;
Total discharge of major pollutants down 10 percent in five years;
Forest coverage up from 18.2 percent in 2005 to 20 percent in 2010.
 
Public service, people's life:
Term of education per capita up from 8.5 years in 2005 to nine years in 2010;
Coverage of urban basic old-age pension up from 174 million people in 2005 to 223 million people in 2010;
Coverage of the new rural cooperative medical care system up from 23.5 percent in 2005 to over 80 percent in 2010;
New jobs created for urban residents reaching 45 million in five years;
Number of rural laborers transferred to non-agriculture sectors reaching 45 million in five years;
Urban registered unemployment rate up from 4.2 percent in 2005 to 5 percent in 2010;
 
Per capital disposable income of urban residents up 5 percent annually in five years, from 10,493 yuan in 2005 to 13,390 yuan in2010;
Per capita net income of rural residents up 5 percent annually in five years, from 3,255 yuan in 2005 to 4,150 yuan in 2010.
 
Expansion of Local Cogeneration (CHP)

Chinas 11th Five Year Period the state establishes the following methods to improve the efficiency of heating: - installation of 300, 000-kilowatt highly efficient environment-friendly cogeneration units mainly in the areas with concentrated heat load or with relatively bigger potential for development; - construction of back-pressure units, mostly thermal power, mainly in the areas featuring industrial heat load, according to the local conditions; - development of centralized heat supply in the areas whose heat demand is mainly for warming and is relatively small, before developing cogeneration when the conditions are available; - in medium-sized and small cities, construction, mainly based on CFB, combined supply of heat, electricity and gas, and distributed cogeneration and combined heat-power-cooling supply with clean fuels; - and the transformation of existent coal-burning small boilers for decentralized heat supply. Objectives: - expand coverage of urban centralized heat supply (27 percent in 2002,) to 40 percent in 2010; - add 40 million kilowatts of cogeneration units for heating; - save 35 million tons of standard coal. Through combined heat and power (CHP) systems, heat efficiency can be raised by 30 percent as compared to separated generation. Centralized heat supply is 50-percent more efficient than small boilers.

Energy Intensity Reduction

Chinas 11th Five-Year Plan includes a major programme to improve energy efficiency nationwide, incorporating many of the programme aims included in the Medium and Long-erm Plan of Energy Conservation. The Five-Year Plan establishes a target of reducing energy intensity (energy consumption per unit of GDP) by 20% below 2005 levels by 2010, or an average of 4% per year.The energy intensity target is part of a broader goal of quadrupling economic growth while doubling energy consumption between 2000 and 2020. The National Development and Reform Commission (NRDC) has allocated the target among provinces and industrial sectors. Meeting energy efficiency improvement targets is among the criteria used to evaluate the job performance of local officials. In the first few years following the target, the 4% average was not met and the yearly figure was no longer used as an official target. In 2006, energy intensity declined 1.79% and in 2007 it declined by 3.66%. The 4% figure was met in 2008, when energy intensity declined by 4.2%.
 
Renewable Energy
The Chinese governments Eleventh Five-year Plan runs from 2006 to 2011. It contains a number of measures designed to increase the share of renewable energy in Chinas energy portfolio. These include: - the construction of 30 large-scale wind farms with a 100Mw capacity; - the provision for grid-connected wind and biomass to reach 5 GW and 5.5 GW respectively; and - to achieve biomass and waste fueled generation of more than 5.5 GW by 2010.

Fuel Standards

Mandated the efficiency improvements for electric motors nationwide. To enhance motors efficiency by two percentage points and save 20 billion kilowatt-hours of power per year, the efficiency strategy includes: - the promotion of popularize highly efficient electrical motors and motors run by permanent magnets; and - the systematic optimization - through speed-adjusted frequency conversion and automated system control - and renovation of high-efficiency wind turbines, pumps and compressors; In 2004, the nations electric motors consumed 60 percent of the countrys total electricity, running at efficiency 10 to 30 percent lower than that of other nations.

National Building Standards

In 2007, the central government adopted China's first national building energy standard as part of its Eleventh Five Year Plan. The standard requires a 50% reduction of building's total operation load based on a building's energy consumption during the 1980s, calculated using average consumption by building type within a designated climate zone. The regulation covers residential, commercial and public buildings. Construction enterprises that do not comply with the regulation may face penalties of CNY 200,000 to CNY 500,000, while design institutes that violate the rules will face penalties of CNY 100,000 to 300,000. To promote compliance, supporting measures were taken by the government, including revising the design regulations for HVAC systems and setting energy saving evaluation procedural requirements and inspection systems, along with other detailed regulations on engineering design and market management. Local governments above the county level are asked to allocate funds to energy and scientific research institutions in order to encourage research into energy-saving technologies. Governments at all levels were asked to renovate buildings to meet the new standard, focusing on areas such as ventilation systems.

China imposed building design standards for public buildings and for residential buildings in three separate climate zones: very cold and cold, hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and hot in the summer and warm in the winter. These standards mandate energy efficient construction as verified by inspection.

Energy Efficiency Light Bulb Programme

As part of a plan to phase out incandescent lighting, the Ministry of Finance announced the first stage of the plan, to subsidise 50 million low-energy bulbs onto the market. Subsidies will be indirect, with efficient bulbs sold to consumers at a discount and companies reimbursed by the government for the shortfall. Individual shoppers will pay half of the price agreed by manufacturers and the government, while businesses will pay just 30 percent of that price. Preference will also be given to the most efficient bulbs for government procurement. The government has already named 13 companies, including the Zhejiang Sunshine Group, to produce the first batch of light bulbs.

Retirement of Inefficient Plants

Starting in early 2007, the NDRC issued orders to retire small and inefficient plants in various industrial sub-sectors. In the power sector as of August 2007, a total of 50GW of small, inefficient power plants are to be required by 2010, comprising approximately 40GW of coal-fire and 10GW of oil-fired plants. Generators wishing to construct new coal-fired power plants can only do so once smaller and older facilities are fully decommissioned. Compensations can be provided to facilitate and accelerate this process. All coal-fired power plants of less than 50MW capacity, and those with capacity between 50 and 100MW that have been in operation for over 20 years will be required to close by 2010. Generators with unit coal consumption 10% or more above the provincial average or 15% above the national average are also targeted for closure. In the cement sector, all plants with an annual capacity under 200 000 tonnes were to be closed by the end of 2008, and 250 million tonnes (Mt) of outdated and inefficient capacity to be retired by 2010. In the steel sector, outdated and inefficient pig iron capacity is to be reduced by 100 Mt and steel capacity by 55 Mt, both by 2010. In addition, all blast furnaces below 300 m3 must be closed by 2010. Steel-making furnaces with less than 20 tonne capacity and blast furnaces below 100m3 were to be closed by 2007. NDRC has established reduction quotas at the provincial and regional levels, for which provincial officials are held responsible through agreements signed with the central government.

Aluminium Industry Permit Standards

In October 2007 the NDRC implemented new standards that must be met for permits to be issued for bauxite mines, alumina refineries, primary aluminium smelting operations, secondary aluminium and aluminium process plants. The standards cover a range of elements, such as scale of production, minimum size of plants and furnaces, technology to be implemented, resource use, as well as water and energy consumption. For bauxite mining, overall energy consumption must be less than 25kg of coal equivalent per tonne produced for underground mining, and less than 13kg for above-ground operations. For alumina refining, energy consumption for newly built Bayer method operations must be less than 500kg of coal equivalent per tonne of alumina, and the recovery rate at least 81%. For other methods, the consumption is limited to 800kg of coal equivalent per tonne, with a recovery rate of at least 90%. For primary aluminium, new and upgraded smelters must consume less than 14 300kWh per tonne of primary aluminium, with electrical efficiency over 94%. For existing smelters, energy consumption is limited to 14 450kWh/tonne with 93% electrical efficiency. For secondary aluminium, the use of direct burn coal reverberating furnaces is prohibited, and other reverberating furnaces must have a capacity over 4 tonnes. For aluminium processing, energy consumption for new facilities is limited to 350kg of coal equivalent or 1150kWh per tonne of finished product. For existing facilities the limit is 410kg of coal equivalent or 1250kWh per tonne.