China's top economic planner on Thursday called for an end to the preferential policies offered by local governments to industries with high energy consumption.

The preferential policies should be abolished and those who refuse to cancel the policies should be blacklisted and shamed in the media, said Jia Yinsong, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Fourteen provinces in the country are said to have offered cheaper power supply to enterprises with high energy consumption without notifying the central government.

Statistics show that the output of crude steel rose 22.3 percent in the first quarter, 4.7 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the same period of 2006, while electrolytic aluminum and alumina production soared 36.6 percent and 53.7 percent respectively.

Another NDRC official Xia Nong also said that the country should place more emphasis on the service industry as an alternative measure to curb energy consumption by the secondary industry.

If the service industry's contribution to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) was increased by one percent and the proportion of the industrial added value went down by one percent, the energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP would also be lowered by one percent, Xia said.

However, the country has seen the proportion of the service industry to the total GDP decrease from 40.7 percent in 2004 to 39.9 percent in 2005, and again to 39.5 percent in 2006.

Source: Xinhua