China's top economic planner said on Thursday that it has started outlining an action plan to phase out light bulbs and promote green lighting to save energy.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the planner, said it would be working in partnership with the United Nations Development Program and the Global Environment Fund on this project.

According to the NDRC, China is one of the top producers and consumers of lighting products in the world. Last year, it churned out 4.44 billion light bulbs, or about-one third of the world's total. Of the 4.44 billion, 2.98 billion were exported.

The country also produced 3 billion highly-efficient impact fluorescent lamps last year, or 80 percent of the world's total. About 2.2 billion of them were exported.

The planner said lighting now accounts for about 12 percent of China's total electricity consumption, and using of energy-saving bulbs could cut consumption by 60 to 80 percent.

"If we replace the light bulbs with energy-efficient ones across the country, we would save 48 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per annum, which is equivalent to more than 60 percent of total electricity generated by the massive Three Gorges Dam each year," said the NDRC's Energy Saving and Environment Protection Department.

In January this year, the NDRC and the Ministry of Finance launched a nationwide campaign to subsidize and promote the use of 150 million energy-efficient lamps, a target set for the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010).

The two governmental agencies said they offered a 30-percent subsidy on wholesale purchases and 50 percent on retail sales of energy-efficient bulbs.

The NDRC said the substitution of 150 million energy-efficient lamps could save 29 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year and reduce emission of carbon dioxide by 29 million tonnes and sulfur dioxide by 290,000 tonnes annually.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2008)