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China will make more efforts to harmonize the relationship between
environmental protection and economic development in the new century
and achieve "win-win" results in the two fields.
At a conference on national environmental protection, Tuesday, Director
of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), Xie
Zhenhua, declared the goal.
Xie noted that China will have an annual population increase of
more than 10 million in the next five to 10 years, with an economic
growth rate by over 7 percent. The western regions of China still
face a weak environmental situation. Any improper economic development
will endanger the environmental safety.
He said that China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO)
will raise higher demand for the nation to protect the environment.
It takes time to realize the economic restructuring, thus the outmoded
style of unsustained consumption will threaten and challenge the
protection task.
He pointed out policies combining environmental protection and economic
development call for further implementation in China, and the legal
system to be reinforced.
In rural areas, the protection work is relatively weak, as technology
and equipment in the sector has fallen short of the demand, and
the foundation and capacity for environmental protection waits to
be improved.
In the Ninth Five-Year period (1996-2000), China has painstakingly
controlled pollutant discharge and enhanced economic restructuring,
mainly closing down 15 kinds of small factories releasing serious
pollutants; forced enterprises wasting resources and the large pollution
makers to shut down, and promoted economic restructuring.
In the past three years, SEPA advocated clean production in the
technical renovation of enterprises, with a demand on combining
laws and regulations on environmental protection with economic policies.
It pushed forward the urban facility construction, enhanced the
pollution-preventing capacity, increased investment to environmental
protection and boosted domestic economy.
To cope with the situation of economic globalization, China implemented
the international environmental standards of ISO14000 and promoted
green food products for the international market for the preparations
of China's entry into World Trade Organization.
(Xinhua 01/09/01)
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