BEIJING - China is the first developing country to establish a national action plan on climate change and show its willingness to act as a responsible one in the combat against global warming, Ma Kai, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission, said on Monday.

China was willing to tackle the threat of climate change but its "first and overriding priority" must be economic development, according to the plan, which sets out the countries broad policies on global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.

The plan states that China is willing to strengthen international cooperation on climate change, but any regional cooperation should "complement" the Kyoto Protocol, the UN-sponsored treaty.

The plan puts the country's 2004 emissions of greenhouse gasses at an equivalent of about 6.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

In the plan, released on Monday, China said it aims to keep industrial emissions of powerful greenhouse gas nitrous oxide stable at 2005 levels in 2010.

"According to tentative estimates by experts from China, China's total GHG emission in 2004 is about 6,100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (5,600 million tonnes of net emissions)," the plan said.

Through more use of hydropower, wind and biomass energy, boosting nuclear power generation and increasing the efficiency of coal-burning stations, China hopes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 950 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, the plan said.