Chinese chemists called on today to develop clean coal-based chemical industry to ease off the country's oil shortages.

"It is the way for China to push forward its chemical industry with Chinese characteristics," said Liu Xunfeng, president of Shanghai Huayi (Group) Company, at today's 14th annual China chemical industry conference.

Present at the conference were chemical companies from home and abroad, including Bayer, Shell and BP.

Liu said China's rich coal resource has provided a good chance for the country to develop its coal chemical industry.

Statistics show that China has resources of 5,000 billion tons of coal, of which 1,000 billion tons can be mined. Therefore, each year more than 2.2 billion tons of coal can be unearthed.

But in the next 20 years, only 5 billion tons of oil can be extracted, with annual 200 million tons recovered, Liu said.

According to China's development outline for the coal chemical industry, the country is expected to build seven coal chemical industrial bases in the areas of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, eastern Mongolia, eastern Heilongjiang, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces by 2020.

(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2008)