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Digging deeper for development

The Chinese government is determined to dig deeper to extract more oil, gas, copper and other key minerals to keep up its present pace of development, says Xinhua, the official news agency. The country's ministry of geology and mineral resources is planning to survey 200 million ha of land before AD 2000, to identify areas for prospecting. Over the next 20 years, the government hopes to find large deposits of oil and gas in the Tarim and Junger basins in west China. And although the country has enough uranium deposits to meet its immediate need, a general survey of uranium deposits will also be launched next century to feed more planned nuclear power stations.

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