中国重化工的资源之忧

Concerns Over Energy Suppliesfor China'sHeavy-ChemicalIndustry.

目前能源短缺的主要原因除了需求增长过快以外,还有供给的体制约束,只有打破制约能源供应的行政审批,消除能源产业的国家垄断,才能为正在进入重化工社会的中国经济提供持续的发展动力。

Since 2002, China's economy, especially heavy chemical industries, has begun a new round of rapid growth. Obviously, however, the supply of many important natural resources, such as oil, coal and electricity, couldn't satisfy the demands. The imbalance between supply and demand for resources hurts China's economy. Many government officials and so-called economists attribute the lack of resources to the excessive consumption by heavy-chemical industries which depend heavily on non-renewable resources. Such high consumption level and low productivity have been taken for granted. Obviously, this misleading concept is based on the comparison of the economies between China and Western countries. But if factors such as average consuming level, purchasing-power parity, different . developing phases, etc. are taken into consideration, we can naturally draw a totally opposite conclusion that China consumed less natural resources than Western countries ever did. Actually, the 'resources bottleneck' in China is due to the monopoly of state-owned enterprises in energy industries such as electricity and coal, and the government's over-strict auditing system. Just as many professionals said :' we must break these two obstacles of energy supply, otherwise nobody can solve this problem.'