China's State Council Information Office released the White Paper on China's Energy Policy on Oct. 24 saying that China's dependence on foreign energy has been increasing in recent years. This is especially true in terms of oil consumption, which rose to 57 percent from 32 percent in the beginning of this century.

The White Paper says China's energy reserves are small, emergency response capacity is relatively weak and the energy security situation is grim. In also analyzes four other difficulties that China's energy development is faced with.

——Contradiction in resources is a constraint.

China has low per capita energy resources compared to the global average. China's per capita coal, oil and natural gas resources is only 67 percent, 5.4 percent and 7.5 percent of the global average respectively. Although China's energy consumption has been growing rapidly as of recent, the per capita energy consumption is only 1/3 of the average of developed countries. With economic development and the improvement of living standards, energy consumption will increase significantly in the future.

——Energy efficiency needs to be improved.
China's energy consumption for per unit of GDP is not only much higher than that of developed countries, but also higher than that of some emerging industrialized countries. The proportional energy consumption of secondary industry is exorbitant, especially in the high-energy consumption industries. Iron and steel, nonferrous metals, chemicals and building materials industries account for about 40 percent of the energy consumption of the whole country.

——Environmental pressures are increasing.
Large-scale exploitation of fossil energy, especially coal, has a serious impact on the ecological environment. Fossil energy will continue to dominate the energy structure for a long time. It's high time to have a green transformation for energy use.

——Institutional mechanisms need a reform.
Deep-rooted contradictions in China's energy system continue to accumulate. The price mechanism is not perfect, industry management is weak and service level needs to be improved. Institutional constraints have become a serious obstacle for the promotion of energy science.

The White Paper stresses that China will vigorously promote energy production and use patterns change, and constantly improve the policy system, make effort to realize the harmonious and sustainable development among the energy, economy, society and ecology.