With the increasing building energy consumption, the improvement of building energy efficiency (BEE) becomes a key part of the reduction of energy intensity in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period (during 2006 and 2010) in China. For this reason, the China central government has enforced and implemented a series of policies to promote BEE. Based on the analysis of main characteristics of BEE development in China and developmental routes of BEE, this paper systematically explored six fiscal incentive policies. Meanwhile, four specific programs involving new building, existing residential building, government office building and large-scale public building, and applications of renewable energy in building were investigated. Besides, the key factors of BEE development and BEE developmental stages were analyzed. The research revealed the present progress of implementation on BEE policies, and identified the drawbacks of the present BEE mechanism. Moreover, four proposals were recommended to enhance the development of BEE in the next "Five-Year Plan" period. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.