China is still in urgent need of energy and transport, though the energy and transport supply have grown rapidly, said an official of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Saturday in Shanghai.

Jia Yinsong, an official of the Economic Operation Department of NDRC said at the seminar on Chinese steel market that in the first 10 months this year, China's coal production was 1.285 billion tons, up 16 percent to the last same period. The country also has reserved 114 million tons of coal, up 4.2 percent to the beginning of this year.

But the capacity of State-owned coal mines have nearly saturated, and township-owned coal mines have become the major force for coal production, which caused huge resource waste, noted Jia.

During the January-October period this year, the country generated 1.74 trillion kwh of electricity, up 15 percent year-on-year. But the country's 24 provincial power grids were faced with electricity power limitation. China was in demand of 30 million kw of electricity power this summer.

He also noted that China produced 145 million tons of crude oil in the past 10 months, up 2.9 percent year-on-year. China imported 85.80 million tons of crude oil, up 36.2 percent to last same period. But China Petroleum Corporation and China Petro-Chemical Corp have almost reached their refining capacity. The newly increased demand was solved by import.

During the first three quarters, China's railways carried 1.613 billion tons of cargoes, up 9 percent to the last same period. But the rail handling capacity only meet one-third of the country's coal transport demand.

Jia pointed out that though control measures on macro-economy have got efficient result, some in-depth conflicts and problems still existed, which have hindered the healthy economic development.

The bottle-neck limitation of energy and transport will still exist in 2005, noted Jia.

(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2004)