More than 8,000 Chinese enterprises have been penalized for
pollution offences in the first eight months of this year but the
vice director of China's environmental watchdog believes the
results are "far below" the expectations of the public.
Pan Yue, vice director of the State Environmental Protection
Administration SEPA, said that four large-scale investigations into
polluters had been carried out from 2005 and offenders had been
penalized, including the closure of 12 major projects that
"seriously violated" environmental protection regulations.
"But, frankly speaking, progress in environmental protection
after these investigations are far below people's expectations," he
admitted.
Pan refused to be drawn on whether or not the government's
"green credit policy" could be classified as a success or a
failure.
The policy was introduced in July in which SEPA regularly
handsover lists of heavy polluters to the People's Bank of China
and the China Banking Regulatory Commission.
Based on the information, companies that fail to pass
environmental assessments, or to implement China's environmental
protection regulations, are disqualified from getting loans from
any bank or financial institution.
"It is too early to say whether the green credit loan policy is
successful or not," said Pan.
"China's environmental issues are very complicated and cannot be
solved by one or two policies," he said.
There has been a shift in the style of punishments doled out by
SEPA to polluters in recent years. Long-term restrictions designed
to affect the way businesses operate are now favored over one-off
fines.
"We used to resort to the traditional mode of administrative
penalty to curb pollution, but such an approach has its own
limitations such as it relies too much on the personal feelings of
the regulation enforcers," he said.
"Now we have begun to use economic policies to protect
environment and make them into a long-term system. Adopting
economic polices to protect the environment is now the most
effective approach to curbing environmental pollution in the
international community and economic policies are easier to be
institutionalized," he said.
"After introducing the economic policies, we will continue to
amend environment-related laws and have a long-term mechanism to
protect our environment," he said.
Pan called on the Ministry of Commerce, the China Securities
Regulatory Commission and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission
to cooperate in the formation of economic policies including, tax,
insurance and security policies.
"With our joint efforts, we will try to work out several
economic policies in one year, finish a pilot program of major
economic polices in two years and primarily establish the economic
policies mechanism to protect the environment in four years," he
said.
(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2007)
