China will focus on building 13 large-scale coal production bases during the "11th Five-Year Plan" period, said Wang Xianzheng, Chairman of the China National Coal Association (CNCA) on April 14 at Coaltrans China 2008.

Wang Xianzheng said that by 2010, coal output from these production bases will reach 2.24 billion tons, accounting for 86 percent of the national total coal output. China will focus on building 10 ten million-ton-class modern opencast mines, and 10 ten million-ton-class safe and efficient modern mines;and form six to eight 100 million-ton-class and eight to ten 50 million-ton-class large-scale coal enterprise groups, as well as their output, will occupy over 50 percent of China's total output.

Wang Xianzheng, on April 14, predicted that the coal demand will exceed 3 billion tons in 2010.

By People's Daily Online