"My bet is that we are about to see the government limit coal use - with peak coal coming much sooner than the usual predictions suggest."

Nick Butler, visiting professor and chair of the King's Policy Institute at King's College London, says China is now so central to the global energy market that whatever is done will make waves around the world.

"Moderate investment means that the central government will contribute only a portion of the funds required for the project. The balance has to come from private capital."

Li Yining, an economist at Peking University, says private capital is an essential tool to solve employment-related problems.

"Science and technology has helped improve breeding, planting and cultivation techniques and also ... disease control, crop nutrition, water conservancy and irrigation."

Ning Gaoning, chairman of the China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corp, says agriculture has long been regarded as a traditional industry, but is actually a high technology and research and development driven industry.

(China Daily European Weekly 04/10/2015 page18)