The Chinese Academy of Sciences published on February 28 a report concerning China?痵 sustainable development in 2006. Report points out that building China into a saving oriented society is a core task for the socioeconomic sustainable development in the country. It also proposes long and medium term objectives for building such a society.

It proposes that by 2020 China shall place its general demand for major energy and resources under an effective control, with a stable environmental quality, turning for better. The saving indexes for 10 resources and pollutants shall come down by 60%, compared with 2000, with resources productivity or ecological efficiency being raised by 2-4 times.

Report defines a range of concrete objectives, including curbing excessive consumption of energy; lowering per GDP energy consumption by 50%-60%; zero growth for water consumption, and lowering per GDP water resources consumption by 80%, with a reduced 45 % for water consumption in agriculture, or an annual reduction by 1%, and recycled industrial water consumption exceeding 85%; zero growth for cement and steel consumption, with per GDP cement consumption being lowered by 55%, steel by 40%, and non-ferrous metal by 20%; zero growth for waste water emission, with per GDP waste water emission being reduced by 70%; stabilizing the emission of sulphur dioxide, with a lowered emission by 75%; striving to curb the growing emission of carbon dioxide, with a reduced per GDP emission by 60%; improving wastes recycling, with steel recycling exceeding 55%, and common non-ferrous metal 50%.