Yu Youjun, governor of China's coal-rich Shanxi Province, apologized on Monday for the major coal mine accidents last year and the province's failure of fulfilling its energy-saving target.

The governor said on the average 80 people died in the production of every 100 million tons of coal in Shanxi last year, down from 98 in 2005 and also below the national level.

"However, major mine accidents were still happening. The accidents in July and November caused great losses to the lives and property of the people," he said.

Yu made the remarks while delivering a report on the work of the government at the Shanxi provincial people's congress.

In July, 53 people were killed in a blast at the Linjiazhuang Coal Mine of Lingshi County, while in November 34 miners were killed in a fire and 24 others died in a gas explosion.

The governor also apologized for the failure of fulfilling the energy-saving target. Shanxi had planed to reduce energy cost for per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 5.6 percent in 2006, but only achieved two percent of decrease.

"As the leader of the provincial government, I shall take the responsibility for the failure and I feel restless to great extent," Yu said in a sincere tone.

"We must take more effective measures this year and achieve remarkable results," he said firmly.

Participants to the congress applauded the apology from the governor.

It is not common for such a high-ranking official to make apologies openly in China.

Sources told Xinhua that Yu had proposed to apologize for these issues while the province's top officials were discussing the draft of the report.

Shanxi has been closing small and dangerous mines in the past two years and is expected to have only 3,200 by June, down from the former 9,000.

In 2006, the Shanxi government fulfilled all the targets except the energy-saving one set at the provincial people's congress early last year.

Source: Xinhua