Ms. Shou Jiahua
Vice minister of Land And Resources of the People’s Republic of China
Director General of China Geological Survey
March, 2002 STRATEGIC READJUSTMENT OF CHINA’S GEOLOGICAL WORK IN THE NEW CENTURY AND ITS PROMOTION OF MINING INDUSTRY
Ms. Shou Jiahua

　　Good afternoon Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

　　It is a great honor for me to have the chance to participate in the PDAC held in this beautiful country-Canada, and meet and discuss with delegates from mining industry, international organizations and governmental agencies of various countries. Canada is distinguished for her mineral resources and mining industry in the world. Its efficient mining industry has strongly supported its economic and social development and made Canada a rapidly risen developed country in the New Continent. Canada’s achievements and experiences in modern mining industry will undoubtedly have great reference significance for China, as has been well manifested by the fruitful cooperation in geosciences and mining industry between Canada and China. I wish to take this opportunity to introduce briefly the undergoing strategic readjustment of China’s geological work, so that such changes could be well understood by the world, and China’s governmental agencies and mining industry get more involved in international cooperation in mining sector.

　　As is known to all, sustainable development is now the common theme of mankind. Because of the differences in individual conditions and history of development, we cannot expect application of the same standard and model to the social and economic development of all countries. Entering the 21st century, developed countries have gone into a virtuous cycle of population growth and set up nearly all necessary infrastructures. In these countries, the demands for many renewable mineral resources are declining. In contrast, however, China and many developing countries are facing the peaks of population, infrastructure construction and mineral resource demands, and are meanwhile under the triple pressures of population, resources and environment issues. During the last decade, China’s demands for major mineral resources have doubled and redoubled. This trend will continue in the following decades. To guarantee both the steady supply of mineral resources required for the rapid economic growth and sustainable social development has become the basic consideration in the strategic readjustment of China’s geological work.

　　The strategic readjustment is the needs of extensively implementing market economy and adapting to economic globalization. In the last decades of planned economy, the core of China’s geological work was domestic mineral development and guaranty of mineral supply, and government played as both the principal investor as well as major customer. The government involvement covered the whole procedure from exploration to development. Such planned economy model no longer fit the needs of market economy and globalization of mining industry, and it also makes it difficult to guarantee increasing supply of mineral resources. Entering the WTO, we are urged to follow the rules of market economy, and integrate China’s mineral demand-supply into the global system. There is no doubt that such changes will profoundly influence China’spolicies, mining and investment legal systems and regimes.

　　Under such background, substantial readjustment in national geological work has been carried out, which is marked by the set up of the China Geological Survey in 1999. Firstly, the process started with the separation of public-welfare geological work from commercial work. During this process, state-financed geological forces shrank from nearly eight hundreds thousands employees to around 20,000 at present. Meanwhile, improvement of market mechanism has been accelerated and great efforts have been made to strengthen commercial geological work and promote mining industry. Following this, China’s geological work is being transferred from resource-focusing to resource-environment type, which focuses at the human needs, protection of resources and environment and geo-hazard reduction. Thirdly, we speed up the adaptation of geological work to global system, by modification of policies and laws.

　　China’s actual situations requires that, while the readjusted geological work provides wide range services to the society, guaranty of mineral resource supply and promotion of mining industry is still the key mission of the national geological work. In the last two decades, demands for mineral resources declined due to the completion of industrialization in developed countries, which is accompanied by increase of capacity in mineral resource supply due to advancing of technology. This has resulted in the depression of global mining industry. In China, however, the large population and high speed development of industry still requires increase of mineral resource supply. This suggests that the mining industry in China needs to be further developed, and on realizing this, we need to participate in the global system of mining industry.

　　The readjustment will effectively promote the healthy development of China’s mining industry. Separate operation of commercial geological work will help China’s mining industry to participate in the global competition. Meanwhile, release of geological data created by national geological work to the public will provide mining enterprises more chances to choose. Currently, we are organizing multi-purposed mapping program to widen the scope of service to the society. Strategic investigation of new substitute energy resources will contribute to the energy supply in the future. The national mineral exploration will lead to discovery of some large and super-large mineral deposits in the west China. At the same time, environment assessment has been carried out in the west China that will assure “green mining” commitment. I am confident that these projects will significantly improve China’s mining industry situation and promote its development.

　　In comparison with many countries with highly developed mining industry, the level of China’s mining industry is still low. We need to upgrade the technology of ore processing and utilization, to develop mineral resources in a more efficient way. The strategic transfer of China’s mining to the western China is irreversible. This terrene with 6 million square kilometers of area will create a huge mining market, not only to China, but also to the whole world. In this area, the national geological work will play an important role in promoting the creation of such market. Data and information service provided by national geological work will reduce the cost and risk of commercial work. China’s entrance into the WTO will urge change and adjustment of governmental duties and behaviors, improve legal systems and enhance the quality of public services. These will create an unprecedented opportunity for attracting foreign investment to China’s mining market and encourage Chinese companies to carry out overseas mineral exploration and development. China’s rapid and sustained economic development and huge market for mineral resources is a rare chance expected by the mining circle in the world. I expect that people of insight seize this chance and by no means miss it.

　　The year of 2002 is the year of Horse in Chinese lunar calendar. In Chinese, the “Horse” symbolizes a favorable weather for harvest and success in an undertaking. Before I finish my presentation, I would like to use a Chinese idiom to express my wishes to all the delegates here: wishing you an instant success in the year of the Horse!

Thank you!