A new focus not on sizzling growth but on the cost it incurs fully demonstrated the Chinese authorities' resolve to make 2007 a big year in the country's pursuit of sustainable development.

This message from the Communist Party leadership's 2006 Economic Work Conference will surely have a sobering effect.

It made clear that China's progress will no longer be measured merely by the speed of its economic growth.

Instead, the cost of high energy consumption and a deteriorating environment are among the key problems Chinese policy-makers are keen to fix.

This year, the beginning of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10) period, has witnessed many encouraging economic achievements.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 10.7 per cent in the first three quarters, while inflation was kept at bay.

Breakneck investment growth early this year gave rise to fears that the economy might be in danger of overheating. But the rapid slowdown of urban fixed-assets investment from an uncomfortably high level of 31.1 per cent for the first half of the year to about 17 per cent in October shows that the central government's tightening measures are gradually taking effect.

The country's trade volume in the first 10 months has already surpassed that for the whole of 2005, with an annual trade surplus predicted to hit US$150 billion, nearly 50 per cent above the 2005 level.

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