A senior analyst with a State-owned bank disclosed that the country is drafting regulations to introduce industry funds in China to finance big projects relating to energy.

One such fund for industry investments based in North China's Tianjin Municipality has already got government approval, with another in Shanxi Province still in the pipeline, according to the source.

In a bid to meet surging demand, the country is also highly committed to alternative sources such as hydro, wind and natural gas, said Xu.

Despite widespread criticism of building dams to generate electricity along rivers, Xu remained firm that hydro power will be a major energy source to meet China's increasing demand.

The country plans to build hydro power facilities with a total capacity of about 246 GW (gigawatts) by 2020, about half the nation's total installed capacity last year, Zhang Guobao, vice-minister of the NDRC, said earlier.

"About 70 per cent of hydro resources in the west haven't been utilized, and we should try to fill the gap," Xu said.

When asked whether the government has stalled on a massive plan to import LNG (liquefied natural gas) as global crude prices soar, Xu said China is still pushing the LNG imports in "an orderly arrangement."

Zhai Guangming, a senior expert with the nation's biggest oil producer PetroChina, said last month that China would be able to produce 150 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas by 2020, and imports could reach as much as 90 bcm, almost half of which is expected to come from LNG sources.

As for wind power, Xu said the country is expected to have on-grid wind power facilities of 2,000 MW (megawatts) by the end of this year, up from last year's 1,260 MW.

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)