Energy experts: China not to sacrifice food for fuel

http://www.chinaview.cn/
2008-06-06 00:13:23

MANILA, June 5 (Xinhua) -- China has no plan to sacrifice food for fuel, the country's energy experts said on Thursday amid controversy over biofuel.

"Food security comes first in China, more important than fuel," said Song Yanqin, a co-drafter of China's national energy strategies, at Asia Clean Energy Forum 2008 sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila.

"Biofuel," as said in the ADB's publication "Development Asia", has become a new buzz word all over the world, from the Philippines to Brazil, from the United States to the European Union.

Produced from agricultural crops such as maize, palm oil, sugarcane and jatropha, biofuel are used to run factories, power stations and vehicles. Countries that have the right conditions are setting aside millions of hectares of land for new plantations as international demand for prominent biofuel.

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