According to the National Development and Reform Commission, United Nations Conference on Hydropower and Sustainable Development convened in Beijing recently passed Beijing Declaration on Hydropower and Sustainable Development. The declaration shows that hydropower accounts for 20 per cent of the world's total power supply, and at present there are still two thirds of the economically feasible hydropower yet to be developed, 90 per cent of which are in developing countries. All the participants at the conference unanimously deemed that as for the developing countries, huge potentials in water resources need to be explored to benefit human beings. Meanwhile, they also stressed the sustainable development in areas of society, economy and environment while boosting hydropower being friendly to the environment with feasibility in economy.

Zhang Guobao, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, explained the principles and policies of Chinese government on the development of hydropower. He said that China's total energy consumption in 2003 was 1.68 billion tons of standard coals, the second largest energy-consuming country in the world. For the time being, the energy supply in China relies mainly on coal and China is short of oil and natural gas with some 10 per cent energy consumption of the world's average level. The problems of energy resources and environment pollution have restricted the energy development in China. Therefore, it is a very important task to adjust energy structure and reduce the ratio of coal in energy consumption. The reasonable utilization of water resources has become a necessary choice for China's energy policy.

It is believed that the important policy in the development of the energy resources in China lies in priority development of hydropower. If compared with the 80 per cent of the water resources explored in US and more than 90 per cent of the power supplied by hydropower in Brazil and Norway, China's development of water resources even accounts for less than 25 per cent. There is a great gap between China and those countries. So China has a great potential to develop hydropower.

By People's Daily Online