China will contribute more to global efforts to protect the ozone layer by developing and producing substitutes for the ozone depleting substance (ODS), which is widely used in manufacturing.

On Saturday China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) opened the Industrial Park for Implementation of International Environmental Conventions, which will house about a dozen producers of substitutes for ODS within two years.

It is the first such park in the world, SEPA Director Xie Zhenhua says, adding that the country must take measures to rapidly phase out ODS.

China ratified the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1991, which aimed to eventually halt the use of ODSs such as chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) and halon.

China has been phasing-out ODS since then, and has decided to completely ban the production and consumption of ODS by 2010, Xie says.

However, China has made little progress in the production of ODS substitutes and still depends on imports of ODS substitutes.

The SEPA official attributed the low level of domestically-made ODS substitutes to an executive committee of the Montreal Protocol Multilateral Fund, which has failed to support developing countries in the past decade in developing substitute technology and products while phasing out ODS.

Urged by the Chinese government, the committee later allowed China to use part of its grant to develop ODS substitute technology and products, Xie says.

One third of the US$336 million MLF grant will be used to support the construction of new enterprises for substitute production.

The industrial park is located in Langfang Development Zone which is southeast of Beijing. The park will be given US$60 million of the MLF grant, about half of the total investment, to produce substitutes for halon, CFC, solvent and vesicant.

( June 17, 2002)