１９９７年下半年以来，国民经济出现紧缩趋势，经济增长乏力，国有大中型企业效益普遍不佳，能源消耗减少，全国煤炭供求关系严重失衡，产大于求的矛盾越来越突出。在这种背景下，国家从１９９８年９月起陆续将９４个大型煤矿全部下放到省级，１９９９年开始在煤炭行业推行关? Since the second half of 1997, the tightening trend of the national economy, sluggish economic growth, the generally poor efficiency of state-owned large and medium-sized enterprises, and the reduction of energy consumption have brought about a serious imbalance in the coal supply and demand in the country and the contradiction between the production exceeding demand has become increasingly prominent. In this context, since September 1998, the state gradually decentralized 94 large-scale coal mines to the provincial level and started to shut down the coal industry in 1999.