Improved legislation and economic incentive mechanisms are required if progress is to be made in the promotion of energy-saving building construction, says an article in Workers' Daily. An excerpt follows:

　　In recent years, governments at all levels have been actively promoting energy-saving buildings in an attempt to reduce energy consumption. However, these efforts have largely been in vain.

　　Due to a lack of energy-saving consciousness, patchy energy-conservation laws and policies, and the lack of market incentive mechanisms, this promotion of energy-efficient buildings is making only awkward progress.

　　With the urbanization process accelerating, the problem of energy waste in the construction sector is becoming acute.

　　Experts estimate that energy consumption in the construction sector will account for 40 per cent of the country's total energy consumption in the coming years, becoming the most energy-hungry sector.

　　Obviously, promoting energy-efficient buildings is becoming a pressing task, a task that appears to be hard to accomplish.

　　Take Chongqing, a municipality in Southwest China, as an example.

　　The city started an energy-efficient building programme in 1998, but this year only 5 per cent of new buildings met the energy-saving criteria.

　　One major obstacle to the promotion of energy-saving buildings is the lethargic attitude of many developers, put off by the additional 10 per cent construction costs.

　　The incomplete legislation framework concerning energy-saving buildings is another obstacle hampering wider acceptance of energy-efficient buildings.

　　To make things worse, the current regulations are only loosely enforced.

　　Energy conservation in the construction sector is a complex issue, which means it should be tackled in a thorough manner.

　　To start with, the government should do more to increase public awareness of the importance of saving energy.

　　Added to this, legislation on energy-efficient building construction needs to be enhanced, and properly supervised.

　　Finally, the government should put in place an economic incentive mechanism to encourage the promotion of energy-saving buildings.

　　For example, it could introduce preferential tax reductions on such buildings, and also on energy-saving construction materials.