China's northwestern Qinghai province will spend 20 billion on prospecting under the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), a senior official said.
Speaking at the eighth forum of National Reform and Development for Non-ferrous Metal Geology Exploration, Qinghai's Vice Governor Luo Yulin said that greater efforts should be made to prospect a variety of mines and a 3-billion-yuan campaign will kick off this year.
Located in northeast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Qinghai is at the intersection of China's four plates. It is endowed with a unique geological environment and the most abundant metallogenic belts. So far, only one-fifth of the mine survey has been done across the province, leaving great potential for further prospecting.
During the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010), about 3.4 billion yuan was channeled into the geological exploration programs in Qinghai, and 17 new ore fields were found. Breakthroughs were also achieved in prospecting coal, iron ore, copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver.
The size of 58 categories of the province's retained resource reserves rank in the top 10 nationwide, which includes 27 among the top three and 11 ranked first