China's government and large public buildings will be suject to a system to gather, audit and publish energy consumption information from this year, said Vice-Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxing on Thursday.

Seventeen municipalities and provinces, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Sichuan, will be among the first to implement the system to calculate energy consumption.

A compulsory energy saving trial system will be applied to newly-built government buildings and large public buildings, said Qiu.

Efforts to implement energy saving codes and achieve energy saving goals would be taken into account when evaluating officials' performance, said Qiu.

The Ministry of Construction would promote the use of renewable energy to save more energy in buildings, he said.

Businesses would face severe punishment if they failed to follow energy saving codes in building design and construction.

The government was working on preferential policies to encourage the construction of energy saving buildings, such as financial subsidies and tax breaks.

The ministry will hold the Third International Conference on Intelligent, Green and Energy Efficient Buildings and New Technologies and Products Expo in March to promote the development of green buildings.

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2007)