China will quicken its pace to introduce a market-oriented mechanism to state-controlled power, telecommunications, railways, civil aviation and oil industries, said an official from the State Development and Reform Commission Saturday.

At a seminar held in Harbin, capita of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, SDRC Vice Secretary General Cao Yushu defined the reform of the oil industry as being "difficult and sensitive" because the industry has a particular bearing on the nation's development.

"We have to conduct careful and in-depth studies before arranging specific moves to reform oil and other monopolized industries," said Cao at the seminar on the reform and development of the oil industry in Heilongjiang Province, which is home to Daqing Oilfield, the country's major crude oil producer.

China began to allow foreign enterprises to retail finished oil products in January 2005 and has promised to open the wholesale market of crude and finished oil products to foreign entities in January 2007.

Source: Xinhua