Environmental Controls To Help China Cool Growth

27 Jan 2007 (TODAY)

China will tighten environmental controls to restrain investment in
factories that stoked the nation's fastest annual economic growth since
1995.

"We're going to put forth more effort this year in meeting energy
consumption controls," central bank deputy governor Wu Xiaoling said on
Thursday in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, where she is attending the
annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. The plan would improve air and
water quality without fanning inflation, she said.

Meeting a goal of using 4 per cent less energy for each unit of gross
domestic product may help curb industrial expansion, after two
interest-rate increases failed to halt an investment boom last year.
China's economy grew 10.7 per cent last year, spurring speculation that
the government would take further steps to rein in spending. - Bloomberg