The government of China's autonomous Inner Mongolia region has stated that it intends to eliminate all coal mining enterprises with annual outputs of less than 450,000 mt by the end of 2012, while it will reduce the number of coal mining enterprises in the region to 80-100 by 2013.
The Inner Mongolia government has also required that the future outputs of underground lignite coal mines should not be less than 3 million mt per year, while outputs of open pit lignite mines should not be less than 5 million mt per year.