Different forms of capital will be encouraged to enter the environmental protection industry, a top official said on the China Development Forum on Monday.

"China has stepped into the key period for improving environmental conditions," said Huang Runqiu, vice-minister of environmental protection.

"As China is on track to transforming to a greener and sustainable development model, we hope that different forms of capital could enter and bring about changes in technology upgrade, which is quite crucial to cleaning up pollution problem."

Environmental problems loom out loud after years of high speed growth mainly driven by investment and fast development of manufacturing industries, according to Huang.

"Co-efforts are needed to improve energy consumption model and rely less on coal for the majority of the primary energy."

Huang said China will enhance international cooperation to facilitate tech upgrade.

Echoing his sentiment, Joe Kaeser, president and chief executive officer of Siemens, suggested that the key is to improve efficiency of energy consumption, especially of coal-fired power stations and transportation systems.

"Enterprises have their responsibilities and could play their roles to make contribution to improving the environment," said Kaeser.