Shanghai, March 1:

China ranks among the world’s most wasteful users of natural resources, according to a report by a government-linked academic group released today.

The study by the Chinese Academy of Science ranked China 56 out of 59 countries surveyed, with Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland, Britain, Holland and Norway the earth’s most efficient allocators of resources.

China’s inefficiency in the use of five major commodities — energy, water, cement, steel and non-ferrous metal — was 1.9 times higher than the global average level in 2003, the report stated. “This proves that China has not fundamentally broken away from its economic growth model that relies on the intensive use of natural resources,” the academy said, “The academy warned that risks continued to exist in the development of a sustainable economic model, while China’s goal of creating an eco-friendly economy was currently not feasible.” The State Council, announced that environmental improvements, including the control of water, air and soil pollution, would be a major national priority over the next 15 years. But the aca-demy urged to take more comprehensive reform measures that would aggressively promote a viable economic grow-th model, shifting towards technological innovation. The academy’s index measuring China’s pollution and efficient resource use found that 2003 compared better than 1980. But, after improvements in the 1980s, China entered a sustained period of wastefulness amid the near double-digit growth of the 1990s.