The World Widelife Fund (WWF) China launched a nationwide contest on Saturday to encourage Chinese to reduce energy consumption with various of skills in daily life.

The nationwide contest was initiated in Beijing with a pedaling contest organized by the WWF China in which participants could find that using energy-efficient bulbs could consume less electric power.

The WWF China plans to run the contest from this month to the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games next year in schools, universities and communities of major cities.

The contest has been part of a national campaign, named "20 ways to 20%", launched by WWF China last January in which organizers promoted 20 ways in daily life to help China to fulfil the objective of reducing per GDP energy consumption by 20 percent by the end of 2010.

"The campaign has been joined by an increasing number of partners since it was launched," said WWF China Country Representative Dermot O'Gorman.

"With this new efficiency contest, we hope to facilitate a new tide of energy saving among the public and make contribution to the Beijing Olympics," he said.

Chinese people have been encouraged to submit their stories on energy saving to the official website of the campaign (www.20to20.org) for an on-line competition and winners of the various competitions will be awarded as "Energy Saving Heroes" and celebrated during the Olympics.

(Xinhua News Agency September 16, 2007)