An article in the China Daily says centrally-administrated State-owned enterprises (SOEs) should serve as the backbone of the Chinese economy not only by earning profits but also by playing a leading role in fulfilling the country's "green" goals.

The newspaper says compared with their robust profit growth in recent years, the energy conservation and pollution control targets the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission set for central the companies look rather modest.

In a recent online interview, a senior official from the commission said that key companies will strive to cut energy consumption by 20 percent and major pollutants by 10 percent per unit of GDP by the end of 2009, just one year ahead of the national deadline.

It is certainly reasonable to argue that the higher base level for centrally-run state-owned businesses makes it harder to increase energy efficiency and lower pollutant emission than many other domestic enterprises.

But as big producers and consumers of energy and resources, central enterprises have more than a duty to meet the national "green" goals by themselves.

That alone will not be enough to ensure the achievement of China's five-year "green" goals between 2006 and 2010.

The article says major problems preventing many enterprises from improving their environmental performance are their lack of funds and technologies.

Central enterprises are financially and technologically better equipped than most domestic enterprises to do so.

If they can invest more to pursue higher energy efficiencies and manage to profit more from it, numerous small and medium-sized enterprises may be encouraged to follow suit.

But if key SOEs are only told to target just-above-the-average energy and environmental goals, it is hardly possible for other domestic firms to do more.