China's Energy Consumption Per Unit of GDP Drops 4.01 Pct in 2010

BEIJING, Feb. 28  -- China's energy consumption per 10,000 yuan (about 1,520 U.S. dollars) of gross domestic product dropped 4.01 percent year on year in 2010, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Monday.

China's annual energy consumption totaled 3.25 billion tonnes of standard coal last year, up 5.9 percent from a year earlier, the NBS said in a statistic bulletin.

The country's natural gas consumption jumped 18.2 percent year on year in 2010, while coal, crude oil and electricity consumption increased 5.3 percent, 12.9 percent and 13.1 percent respectively year on year.

As a major consumer of industrial raw materials, China's steel consumption soared 12.4 percent year on year to hit 770 million tonnes last year, while cement consumption reached 1.86 billion tonnes, up 14.5 percent from a year earlier.

China is the world's biggest consumer of coal, steel, iron ore and cement, and the second biggest oil consumer and importer after the United States, said the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

China imported 239 million tonnes of crude oil last year, up 17 percent year on year, according to NDRC.