At the same time, the message from the foreign visitors was to keep the opening up process going.
"We want to continue to expand exploration and the intensity of exploration. We have a huge territory and China has huge potential," Land and Resources Minister Sun Wensheng said on the first day of the three-day conference at the capital's plush Beijing hotel.
While much of the language of the speeches by the high-ranking policy-makers was concerned with pushing the message that China should be the chief beneficiary of any exploration and development, the tone of the addresses was broadly pro-business and aimed at allaying foreign investors' fears about investing in China.
"We want to reduce the commercial risks to exploration and promote modernisation. On property rights, we want to improve compensation and safeguard legal rights, as well as deepen reform of state-owned enterprises and provide a good legal and planning environment for natural resources," said Sun.
China's mining data make for formidable reading. Last year, industrial output from mining and the related energy and raw materials sector totaled 4.16 billion RMB, which is 29% of all production.
In January to August this year, investment in the sector amounted to 109 billion RMB, up 36% on the same period a year earlier.
In 2003, ore production volume was 5.7 billion tons, crude oil 170Mt, natural gas 34.13 billion cubic metres, coal 1.67 billion tons, iron ore 260Mt and steel products 220Mt.
The production of ten major non-ferrous metals reached 12.28 million tons while the production of gold was 201.6 tons, silver 4306t, phosphorus ores 24.47t, sulphurite iron ores 8.71Mt and cement 860Mt.
China is ranked the world number one producer of coal, steel, 10 major non-ferrous metals, and cement; it's the second and third ranked producer of phosphorus ores and iron ores and the fifth largest producer of crude oil. It is also a leading country in the production of tungsten, antimony and rare earths.
Sun also looked at China's broader growth picture, particularly the government's macroeconomic measures to cool the overheating economy, which was putting pressure on power supply and forcing prices up.
"The Chinese economy has sustained good momentum of economic growth. In the second half of last year there were some unhealthy elements, which put pressure on electricity and power supply. But we have introduced macroeconomic measures to help and they have achieved success. Growth has stabilized," said Sun.
He said China wanted to open up more and further encourage the implementation of the WTO.
Many of the Chinese government delegates speaking at the conference prioritised sustainable exploitation of natural resources, including Wang Li, vice-minister of land and resources, who spoke of the need to formulate a national plan for mining environmental protection.
"We've been successful in opening up China's mining industry and in moving forward. We have encouraged foreign investments but we also encourage Chinese firms to invest abroad. In the future, we can rely on future reforms and an opening up to the outside world," said Wang.
"We want to try harder in improving mining policies and regulations," said Wang, pointing to a recently published White Paper on mineral resources as an example of how China supports commercial prospecting and mining.
Alan Thomas, Australian Ambassador to China, welcomed the White Paper in his speech to the conference and said: "Australia welcomes China's commitment to improving the investment environment and attracting foreign investment."
Wang said the Beijing government aimed to further clarify the procedure for foreign investors to establish mining exploration and development business, invest and apply for mining rights' clarify processing procedures, requirements and time limits.
"We are going to regulate the management of the mining sector to protect the legal rights of the mining license holders, including foreign companies. We have introduced many laws on this in recent years and built up a comprehensive legal and regulatory system regarding mining rights, compensation and transferral of mining rights. We have strengthened the commitment of mining proprietors," he said.
But he said the government had a lot of work to do to improve the protection of foreign investors.
"Mining licensing shall be carried out by responsible authorities designated by law. We shall regulate the obtaining of mining rights. We shall protect the legal right of exploration licensees to get development licenses and foster and regulate the market of mining rights transaction," Wang said.
Li Jinghui, deputy director general of the business development department of the ministry of finance said that the government was examining ways of cutting the burden on mining enterprises through the macro adjustment of taxation - the tax on non-ferrous metals has been reduced by 30%.
"The Ministry of Finance is considering policy measures of taxation to support the development of the mining industry and will consider introducing compensation policies," Li said.
Gary Nash, an official from the Canadian embassy, said that China and Canada had many areas in common when it came to natural resources.
"One of these areas is continued access to markets. We, and other countries, must be vigilant that markets for our products are not unfairly restricted," Nash said.
Dong Zhan, deputy director general of the ministry for commerce, said China's supreme court was working on how to apply intellectual property laws, another traditional bugbear for the foreign investor.
Rashad Kaldany, who is director of the World Bank's oil, gas, mining and chemicals department, also focused on environmental and safety issues.
"The industry needs to address a number of challenges. First and foremost is the improvement of health and safety followed closely by environmental impact. We need to protect the environment as much as possible," Kaldany said, adding that the World Bank had compiled a report on sustainable coal production in China.
