World Energy Outlook 2007

The magnitude of the region’s imports of gas and coal from the
international markets is very uncertain. Fuel will need to be brought in
to produce electricity. Power plants could be supplied predominantly
by domestic coal, or the coast could become more reliant on the global
market and import substantial quantities of coal or LNG. Important
variables including domestic coal production and transportation costs,
environmental regulation and the price of LNG contracts, will greatly
affect the share of internationally imported coal and LNG.
Background and Assumptions
The coastal and inland regions differ widely in terms of economic conditions and
trends, demographics, energy-resource endowments and energy supply and
demand balances. The coastal region – comprising the eleven provinces and
municipalities of Liaoning, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu,
Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan (Figure 13.1) – is the most
economically advanced part of China, enjoying greater wealth and better living
conditions than the inland region. It is also the region that underpins economic
growth in China; it is more urbanised and its favourable location close to the sea
has underpinned the development of export industries. However, it is poor in
energy resources and relies largely on supplies from outside the region – either
from other Chinese provinces or from abroad. The coastal region includes the
large cities of the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and Bohai Rim, which
face urban energy-supply security challenges as they continue to expand.
This chapter provides an analysis of the importance of the coastal region in China’s
energy market, today and in the future, based on the results of an extensive effort
to collect energy, economic and demographic data and to build a detailed model
of the region. This exercice is intended to demonstrate how some regional factors
may play into the evolution of China’s energy system; it is not intented as an
exhaustive analysis of complex interactions among regions. We present here the
projections derived from the Reference Scenario. The tables in the appendix to this
chapter give more information.
In 2005, the GDP of the coastal region amounted to $1.4 trillion (at market
exchange rate), bigger than that of Canada. The region generated 60% of
China’s GDP, yet has only 39% of its population. It contributed 70% of
China’s economic growth between 1996 and 2005. Coastal per-capita GDP, at
$2 787 at current prices and market exchange rate, is more than double that of
inland China (Table 13.1). Urbanisation rates are also much higher in the
coastal provinces, at 49% compared to 35% in the inland region. 1 Urbanisation
1. The enormous regional economic disparities in China have an urban-rural dimension, as well as the coastalinland
(or east-west) divide (see Chapter 7).
404 World Energy Outlook 2007 - CHINA’S ENERGY PROSPECTS