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China to enhance coal industry restructuring
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-10-17 19:43 The country is considering creating six to eight trans-regional, multi-industrial and mixed-ownership maga coal enterprise groups with yearly production at more than 100 million tonnes each by the end of 2010. Coal-rich Shanxi Province in north China is scheduled to reduce its number of mines to 1,414 from 2,840 at present. The capacity of each mining enterprise will be no lower than 3 million tonnes annually. According to latest figures, the country's coal mines reported 1,029 deaths from 258 accidents through 2008. Last year, 3,786 deaths were registered in mine accidents. China has about 16,000 coal mines, 90 percent of which are classified as small and their safety record is far worse than that of large mines. NDRC vice director Zhang Guobao said the deaths claimed in small mines accidents were eight times higher than those in state-owned major mine accidents. According to SAWS statistics, China closed down 10,000 small coal mines between 2005 and 2007. |
