China has laid a firm foundation for green development and will achieve its ambitious target on increasing the use of renewable resources, a senior advisor with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said Saturday.

Referring to China's bid to produce 20 percent of its energy with renewable resources by 2020, Thierry Raes, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory, said the goal is "very ambitious."

"But that's a sign that China decides to do it. China will honor its words," he told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the 6th Women's Forum for Economy and Society that lasted from Thursday to Saturday in France.

"The funding is there. The regulation is there. The knowledge is there. So why it wouldn't work if there a willingness from the government to do it?" he added.

China is at the leading place in terms of photovoltaic usage and wind power and has made concrete progress this year to reduce pollution, noted Raes, who serves as director of the company's Sustainable Development Department.

So far this year, Beijing has closed over 2,000 cement plants, paper plants, steel factories and other manufacturers using outdated machines and highly-polluting technologies.

"Sometimes people believe that China is not doing efforts and Europe is at the head of the pack leading all the countries in environment. This may be true, but not completely true, because we have the same objective as you have," Raes said.

"Learning from the nature -- not just extract resources from the nature, I think this is something closer to Chinese mentality than that is to western mentality, which makes me as well confident at these targets we mentioned," he added.

Citing Taoism on the man-nature relationship and Confucianism on social harmony, the French analyst said, "If you have them together, this is not far from our concept of sustainability. This is deeply rooted in the Chinese mentality."

The PwC's 2009 China Greentech study outlined seven sectors that could be cleaner: alternative transportation, clean water, cleaner conventional energy, cleaner industry, integrated electric power infrastructure, green building and renewable energy.

It also listed the challenges facing China on the way ahead and indicated opportunities for the greentech industry in and outside China.

In view of international cooperation, Raes suggested better mutual understanding between the main stream in China and that in Europe on the developing mode. "Being frightened by somebody else is always the beginning of a fight," he said.

The PwC partner, who started research on sustainability over 10 years ago, said one of his best assistants has been sent to Beijing to work with Chinese colleagues for two years in the hope that her return could better the European team's understanding of China.

"In a variety of industries, China is catching up, including green technology. There will be in the near future many Chinese champions and leaders in their own industries. I'm 100 percent sure it will happen," he said.

He also praised China's efforts to help other countries in this cause by exporting green technologies.

(China Daily October 18, 2010)