Developing cars powered by hydrogen will be an effective way to relieve China's gas pollution problems, experts say.

Over 60 domestic and foreign experts attended a symposium on China's strategies to develop hydrogen-powered cars, which opened Thursday.

China is not burdened with a large-scale traditional car manufacturing infrastructure, so it could skip the 21st century's auto-making techniques and develop concept cars with the 21st century characteristics, said Professor Meinolf Dierkes, an expert with the German Berlin social sciences research center.

During China's tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005), the Ministry of Science and Technology has earmarked 400 million yuan (about US$48 million ) to develop hydrogen-powered cars, said Lun Jingguang, an expert with China's fuel-cell bus project office.

China had over 24.2 million cars in 2003 and the figure is expected to top 30 million in 2005 and China will become the largest car consumer within ten to 15 years, according to statistics from the Development Research Center of the State Council.

However, China will need 450 million tons of petroleum by 2020, of which 60 percent will be imported.

Chinese big cities have been fighting against exhaust pollution and the country has been listed as the second largest country polluted by carbon dioxide after the United States.

(People's Daily April 16, 2004)