The creation of China's first emissions trading exchange has been postponed indefinitely amid disagreements on foreign ownership in the bourse.

The CNPC Assets Management Co., an affiliate of the China National Petroleum Co. (CNPC), the Tianjin Property Rights Exchange (TPRE) and the US-based Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) agreed at the beginning of 2008 to set up an emissions bourse in Tianjin, the first in China.

Under the original plan, the CCX was to take a 25 percent stake in the 100-million-yuan (US$14.3 million) bourse, while CNPC Assets Management Co. and the TPRE would own 53 percent and 22 percent of the bourse, respectively, Monday's 21st Century Business Herald reported.

The project, which was to have started before May, was postponed for an unspecified period over disagreements on allowing foreign investment, said the newspaper.

The exchange, part of a government plan to develop the Binhai New Area in Tianjin, was designed to trade permits for emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, according to the newspaper.

China, one of the world's largest emitters, is not bound to cut greenhouse gas emissions before 2012 under the UN climate change framework.

The country now trades carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows industrial countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment to invest in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries.

(Xinhua News Agency July 1, 2008)