China will have more than 600 environment friendly mines by 2015, Dong Zuoji, director of the planning department of the Ministry of Land and Resources, said on Thursday.

According to Dong, green mines are mining enterprises that are environment friendly, and pay attention to issues such as energy saving, emissions reduction and land reclamation in their daily operations. The mines should also make contributions to their community, he added.

The idea of developing China's green mines was brought up by Xu Shaoshi, head of the ministry at the 2007 China Mining Conference. So far, China has 220 pilot enterprises.