Shanghai's mayor Han Zheng yesterday pledged to fast-track the development of the service industry and achieve the wider agenda of a resource efficient and environmentally friendly economy.

At the 19th International Business Leaders' Advisory Council, Han said the sector is gathering momentum to surpass its current earning power.

Latest official figures show the outputs of the service industry accounted for 51.7 percent of the city's GDP.

"More efforts should be made to change the economic growth model by rapidly developing the financial service industry and manufacturing industry with high value added," Han said.

Business leaders at the council agreed developing the sector would ease environmental degradation.

The move is consistent with China's 11th Five-Year Plan for 2006-10, which advocates growth with resource conservation.

"The added benefit of cultivating the services industries is that they don't add a great deal to an area's environmental woes, " Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, said.

"Shanghai has recognized the value of attracting more service industry jobs and companies to locate and remain in the area."

Business leaders also agreed that economic growth could be a major cause of environmental degradation if not managed within the limits of the ecosystem.

In a related development, Shanghai plans to shut down another three sets of coal-fired generating units to meet its annual energy-saving target, sources with the local government said yesterday.

The units have a total power capacity of 500,000 kilowatts.

In the next two months, two generating units at the Wujing power plant in the city's Minhang district and a fuel unit in the Jinshan petrochemical construction company will halt operation.

Last month, the city shut down all three generators at the 110-year-old Nanshi power plant along the Huangpu River to transform the site into an exhibition area for the 2010 World Expo.

Shanghai has heeded the nation's call to close energy-guzzling coal-fired units.

According to the city's 11th Five-year Plan for the 2006-10 period, it will close about 2.1 million kilowatts of generating units in seven power plants, saving about 1.1 million tons of coal and cutting sulfur dioxide emissions by 80,000 tons per year.