The Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform issued the price hike information on October 6. It said benchmark prices for gasoline and diesel oil would be increased by 200 yuan ($29) and 290 yuan ($42) per ton, respectively, as of October 7. Drivers frowned on the hikes, because they will have to pay an average of 50 yuan ($7.30) more each month to drive to and from their offices.

Although officials said the price hike was largely a regional decision and would apply only in Beijing, drivers in other cities worried their governments might follow suit.

Xinhua News Agency quoted an anonymous official who said the Beijing price hike was supposed to offset the increasing production costs of the country's oil refineries.

"Unlike the national price adjustment on June 20, the price hikes this time are regional ones which are meant to offset increased costs borne by oil companies for providing the Beijing market with improved processed oil products" that conform to European standards, the official said.

Buildings Go Green

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has started an 800-million-yuan ($117 million) program to support the financing of privately-owned, energy-efficiency buildings in China, the bank said in a statement issued on October 7.

Under the program's pilot scheme, the ADB will extend partial credit guarantees for loans to retrofit existing buildings to boost energy efficiency by 20-40 percent and to support the construction of new energy-efficient buildings. China lacks such funding for energy-efficient buildings, because banks tend to view the projects as relatively risky and have little experience in evaluating them.

"Given the country's rapid urbanization, energy efficiency in buildings will have a long-lasting and large cumulative impact," said Robert Wihtol, ADB's Country Director for China, in a statement.

China is said to be the second largest energy consumer in the world after the United States and a major producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Construction and building materials consume 16-18 percent of China's energy, but most of the country's existing buildings cannot meet the government's energy-efficiency standards.

The program is part of the ADB's Energy Efficiency Initiative, which aims to provide at least $1 billion a year to fund energy-efficiency and clean-energy projects.