Environmental protection efforts should be included in job performance evaluation of civil servants, says a senior environment official.

During a weekend environmental forum in Beijing, Pan Yue, vice-minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration, echoed an idea that has been heatedly discussed across the country recently.

Relevant departments, together with his administration, have already done a lot of preparatory work towards including environmental protection achievements or failures in job assessments and link them with promotions or demotions.

Items such as changes in air and water quality as well as the number of environmental complaints should be part of standard of job reviews, he said.

Earlier this year, Xia Guang, director of the administration's Policy Research Center, said some provinces are working towards adopting the system on a trial basis, although no timeline has been set.

Also on Saturday, experts said if environment costs are deducted, China's average annual gross domestic products (GDP) growth between 1985 and 2000 would drop by about 2 percent.

Niu Wenyuan, an expert with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said China's economy has been one of the fastest growing in the world, but that growth has cost a lot of resources and ecological degradation.

For example, last year the country's consumption of steel was 27 percent of the world's total, coal was 30 percent, cement was 40 percent and aluminum was 25 percent.

(China Daily April 26, 2004)