China's power shortage eased in 2005, featuring a flourishing supply and demand, tight early in the year and afterward and experience a gradual alleviation, a senior official told a forum Saturday.

The country has been battling acute energy shortage as its economy roars ahead at breakneck speed, seeing growth last year of 9.9 percent.

China consumed 2,468.9 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2005, up 13.45 percent year on year while the power supply hit 2474.7 gigawatt hours, up 12.8 percent over 2004, Wang yongan, secretary-general of China Electricity Council (CEC), said.

He noted that the national and continuous power shortage in 2004 turned into regional, seasonal and interim shortages in 2005.

Power-short provinces reduced from 26 in the beginning of 2005 to 11 in November. The country's then-most power-short was down by approximate 25 million kilowatts, according to official figures.

The growth rate of power consumption in 2005 declined by 1.73 percentage points than 2004, of which industry used 1,805.6 gigawatt hours of electricity, up 12.48 percent year on year, while the growth rate went down 4.27 percentage points from the previous year, Wang said.

Output reduction of the high energy consuming industry contributed most to the alleviation, he said. The industry power consumption rate declined by 0.72 percentage points from 2004, 0.3 percentage points higher than in 2003, Wang said, adding that the industry power consumption hike was a permanent feature of China's industrialization.

Source: Xinhua