China's coal industry transformation: performance, challenges and prospects

This thesis examines the performance, challenges and prospects of the Chinese coalindustry under transformation in the market transition period from 1993 to date. The term'transformation' is used intentionally to distinguish it from 'transition', which is more commonly used. While issues arising from state-ownership are central in an economic transition, the tenn 'transformation' also takes into account the existence of China's otherspecific challenges including the many small scale mines, poor mining safety, andpressure on the industry's prospects resulting from increasingly stringent environmental regulations. ... Based on the results of empirical and quantitative analysis, several policy recommendations are proposed which include deepening market reforms of State-owned coal mines through privatisation or relinquishment of state ownership, changes of corporation governance and debt restructuring; and improving governance of small coal mining through improvement of the legal and fiscal frameworks and building of SCM's capacity. The participation of stakeholders is useful in the process of improving safety and regularising small coal mining. The formulation of industrial policies such asparticipating in the unemployment insurance system, promoting export liberalisation,strengthening mining consolidation, are also recommended. The thesis also argues thatthe policy of simply closing down mines in China is impractical and ineffective, and that a better alternative is to govern their development through regularisation.The thesis also outlines some directions for future research into the coal industry'stransformation.