CHINA CUTS DOMESTIC COAL PRODUCTION TARGETS AS PRICES SLIP

BEIJING – China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has lowered its coal output targets for the country's top three producing regions. It wants to ease an oversupply built up by the economic slowdown, which has weakened prices. The NDRC has set the national total coal output for 2012 at 3.65 billion tons, an increase of 3.7% from a year earlier, but an 8.7% drop on last year's growth rate at the same stage.