Inner Mongolia vows to be Chinas top coal producer
Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region declared that it would produce 500 million tons of coal annually by 2010, which would make Inner Mongolia Chinas foremost coal producing region. The regional government of Inner Mongolia released an economic plan that aims to overhaul the regions coal sector and put the abundant natural resources to work for both the region and China as a whole. The plan calls for Inner Mongolia to shut down or merge the regions small coal mines over the next three years. The local government hopes to reduce the number of local coal mines from 1100 to 700 by 2007. Inner Mongolia would then attempt to establish a group of coal production centers whose annual outputs would exceed 100 million tons.