Jan. 29, 2007 (China Knowledge) – China is likely to become an industrial economy from an agricultural one by 2015, but its efforts at environment protection still has much room to improve, according to a report by China's top scientific institutions.

China's Modernization Report 2007 found that the level of ecological protection in the country had failed to progress when compared with other nations over the last three years due to its rapid industrialization.

China had attained an average annual growth rate of 9.6% since its economy was opened up to the world in 1980. However, the country was ranked 100th out of 118 developing and developed countries in 2007, the same ranking as in 2004, when the report was last issued.