China stepped up its energy conservation drive with a law that makes officials’ career prospects dependent in part on their energy-saving efforts, according to Xinhua News Agency, the official press agency of the People’s Republic of China.

The amendments to China’s Energy-Saving Law, which almost doubled the size of the original legislation, will take effect on April 1, 2008.

Among the new provisions is one that requires the performance reviews for local government officials’ — vital for advancement in the Communist Party — to include an assessment of their energy-saving efforts.

Beijing is trying to steer the world’s fourth-largest economy away from a model of growth at any cost towards more sustainable development, as the human and economic costs of nearly three decades of dirty expansion mount up.

Officials are also concerned about the increasing reliance on foreign oil, which now accounts for nearly half of the country’s needs even though it was a next exporter until the early 1990s.

“The way in which energy-saving goals are accomplished will be made part of the performance rating of local governments and their leaders,” Xinhua quoted the revised law as saying.

New entities have been included under the amendment ranging from the construction sector to transportation, while the old law only held industrial enterprises responsible for energy conservation.

According to the revised law, local energy saving standards in the construction industry must be stricter than those set by the central government and industrial associations as energy saving on buildings is closely related to the local geographic situation.

The revised law also requires property developers to inform buyers of energy saving measures in each building for sale. This obligation has to be stated in the property quality certificate and also in contract papers.

Other new regulations stipulate that projects which fail to meet energy conservation standards should not be given approval to construction, that projects already under construction but fail to meet energy conservation standards should be halted, and that below-standard buildings cannot be sold.

The revised law employs incentives to spur initiative through taxation, lower prices, loans and government procurement. For example, financial institutions are encouraged to increase credit aid to support the development of energy-saving technology and the production of energy-efficient products.

The revised law also stipulates that energy producers are not allowed to provide free energy to their employees. But it did not tackle an issue which many analysts say is at the root of China’s wasteful energy use — low state-set prices for power.

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