Honourable Mr. Chairman,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all, I would like to express my congratulations, on behalf of the State Economic and Trade Commission, to the opening of the first session of the Second Phase of China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.
Formulating and implementing China's Agenda 21 and promoting sustainable progress is our strategic choice, aimed at the coordinated growth of the economy and t he environment. The State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC), as a cabinet-level department whose mandate is to manage the national macro-economy and coordinate the current operations of the economy, is now implementing China's Agenda 21 in its various economic activities.
1. Concentrating on the Requirements of a Sustainable Growth and Highlighting Environmental Protection in the Economic Restructuring
In recent years, our commission has taken economic restructuring and the improvement of performance as the starting point of our economic development, so as to promote the transforming of the modes of economic growth. For example, for those enterprises which have high consumption of energy, poor economic performance an d serious pollution problems, we have either closed them, stopped their production, merged them or changed their lines of production; and for those overstocked products which consume too much energy and raw material, have poor quality or pollute the environment, we have either limited their amount or turned them into other products. In the restructuring program that our commission is working on, w e have put forward the requirement to eradicate a group of those products and we are taking strict measures to restrain the development of those products with high energy consumption, low grade, poor economic performance and serious polluting effect. Meanwhile, we have taken the improvement of the technological level of enterprises, the introduction of new techniques and equipment and the reduction of energy consumption as the key methods for better efficiency.
In accordance with the Law on Prevention and Harnessing Air Pollution, our commission, jointly with other departments concerned, has issued the first list this year of fifteen techniques and equipment to be eliminated for reasons of causing air pollution. The commission, together with the relevant departments, requires the agencies and individuals manufacturing, selling, importing or utilizing these equipments or techniques to strictly abide by this law or otherwise be subject to legal punishment.
2. Taking Environmental Protection as a Key Assignment of the Technical Advancement of Enterprises
Environmental protection has been included in the technical advancement program of the Ninth Five-Year Plan period, which attaches importance to integrating the prevention of industrial pollution with the technical advancement of enterprise s. In both The Outline of the Technical Renovation Program for the Ninth Five-year Plan and The Outline of the Technical Development of the National Industrial Communications for the Ninth Five-year Plan, saving energy, reducing consumption and environmental protection have been placed in an important position, and technical renovation and development programs beneficial to environmental protection have been put forward.
The environmental impact evaluation should be carried out strictly and the environmental protection projects should be designed, constructed and finished together with the main body of the technical renovation projects. It is roughly estimated that as much as RMB 50 billion yuan or more has been used for environmental protection projects in the technical renovation projects during the Eighth Five- Year Plan period.
Investment should be increased. In recent years, our commission has been gradually increasing the investment for environmental protection. According to preliminary statistics, among all the technical renovation projects our commission has set up from 1994 to 1997, 460 projects were focused on supporting the environmental protection industries, improving the efficiency of the utilization of energy, ensuring the comprehensive utilization of wastes, promoting the development of new energy resources, undertaking clean production demonstration, and preventing and harnessing pollution in key river valleys, all with a total investment of R MB 35 billion Yuan. This greatly improved our capability of preventing and harnessing industrial pollution.
3. Stepping up Efforts to Pursue the Integrated Utilization of Resources and Pro mote the Improvement of the Environment
High consumption of the resources and exorbitant waste has been mainly blamed f r the industrial pollution. The major approaches to the improvement of the environment are energy saving, integrated utilization of resources, and recycling of t he wastes. Thinks to a couple of years of hard effort, China has greatly improved the efficiency of its resource utilization. The average energy consumption per RMB ten thousand GDP, fell from 6 tons of standard coal in 1985 to 3.94 tons o f standard coal in 1995, an average decrease of 3.6% per year. In ten years, China has saved an accumulated 467 million tons of standard coal, equivalent to the reduction of CO2 emission by 65 million tons and SO2 emission by 2.6 million tons. In 1995, the country recycled the waste residue of 286 million tons, which accounted for 43% of the total.
1) Reinforce the legislature and prioritize policy guidance
The SETC has drafted, in conjunction with other relevant ministries, the Act on Energy Saving and its complementary regulations, and formulated and put into effect the tentative regulations for The Appendix of Energy Saving to Feasibility Re port of the infrastructure and Technical Upgrade Projects.
In addition, SETC has enacted and enforced the preferential policies and relevant regulations in an effort to encourage the integrated utilization of resources among the enterprises. The policies include the tax break, incentives in terms of price, electricity wave crest adjustment, integration of the comprehensive power station with the power grid, and other restraint measures and management reinforcement.
2) Push ahead with the technologies for the energy integrated utilization and en energy saving.
Firstly, we are pursuing the research, demonstration and application of clean coal technology in an effort to enhance the efficiency of energy use. We have executed a number of the demonstration projects as the key priorities of energy saving technologies, such as CFBC, cogeneration, briquette coal, and frequency control motor. The projects were successful.
Secondly, we are supporting the initiation, demonstration and application of the technologies with sound economic efficiency and high added-value, such as fly ash recycling, coal residue generation, the production of sulfur acid and cement with phosphate gypsum, the production of gas with waste plastics and rubber, diesel oil technology.
Thirdly, the Commission, together with the relevant ministries, issued a list of the mechanical and electronic products to be phased out, or recommended for phase-out, and made public 105 excellent applied technologies of energy integrated utilization.
3) Among other projects, we are specially coordinating the execution of the Chin a Green Lightening Project, with a view to saving electricity.
It is expected that China will have an electricity saving capacity of 22 billion kilowatts through the project, downsizing the electricity crest by 7,200 megawatts, equivalent to saving a power installing capacity up to 9,780 megawatts.
By the year 2000, the emission of SO2 and CO2 will be cut by 200,000 tons and 7.4 million tons respectively through the project.
5) Promote the propaganda efforts and popularize "resource consciousness", "saving consciousness", and "environmental consciousness".
SETC will join the efforts of the relevant ministries in organizing the annual " National Energy Saving Week" each October.
The first international business conference on energy integrated utilization will be held in Beijing this November.
Aside from these activities, we are pursuing a series of nation-wide propaganda campaigns concerning the integrated utilization of energy.
4. Promote the Industrial Development of New and Renewable Energies
The development and application of new and renewable energies constitutes the major part of changing the energy mix, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development. Since 1995, the Commission, in cooperation with the relevant ministries, has proposed Guidelines on the Development of New and Renewable Energies between 1996 and 2010 suggesting the objectives, polices and approaches to developing pollution-free solar, wind and bio-energies.
New and renewable energies industry is an emerging industry in China in the last ten years. As for pushing the industrial development of the new and renewable energies, the Commission aims at: accelerating the localization of the large scale wind generation unit, developing high-efficiency solar heat collection equipment, supporting large and medium-sized methane gas projects, establishing the combined productive operations of light batteries and applied components, developing high-efficiency bio-energy equipment and resorting to geothermal energy resource s.
5. Actively Promoting the Cleaner Production and Strengthening the Prevention of Industrial Pollution
With the target of improving the utilization rate of resources and reducing the volume of pollutants, cleaner production must begin at the source and focus on the control of whole production process. This has both environmental and economic benefits and is the key for the prevention and control of industrial pollution and an important measure to realize the coordinated development of environment and economy. In recent years, we did work during our practice on cleaner production as outlined below.
Firstly, we regarded the implementation of cleaner production as an important content of laws and regulations and incorporated it into the Ninth Five-Year Plan on state environmental protection.
Secondly, we actively conducted the demonstration pilot work of cleaner production and arranged a batch of key demonstration products.
Thirdly, we earnestly enforced the programs of action of The Project of China Agenda 21 Cleaner Production Policy and Management. This project is listed among t he first batch of priority programs in the China's Agenda 21 and is one of the cooperation projects between the governments of China and Canada. The project focuses on the reset and proposal of policy and managing methods for the implementation of cleaner production in China, compiling guide for cleaner production in key industries, organizing cleaner production training and studying to establish an information system of cleaner production. Under the active support of the Canadian International Development Agency, this project was formally initiated this year and is proceeding smoothly.
6. Strengthening Macro-Control and Encouraging the Introduction of Advanced Environmentally Sound Technology and Equipment
We grant preferential temporary Import tariff rate to the environmentally sound equipment that can not be manufactured domestically or that can be manufactured domestically, but the performance indices cannot meet requirements. Approved by the State Council Tariff Regulation Committee, 39 kinds of environmentally sound equipments are listed in the range of import commodities applying temporary tariff rate of 1997 and enjoy the preferential tariff. According to the import and export tariff rate enforced since October 1,1997, another 12 kinds of equipment concerning environmental protection are listed to enjoy preferential tariff.
We formulated the Guidance Catalogue for Key Introduced Technology in Technological Renovation. Technologies concerning energy saving, comprehensive utilization of resources and prevention and control of industrial pollution are included. The competent authorities governing technological introduction and renovation can prioritized the projects and fund them correspondingly.
7. Actively Conducting International Cooperation
SETC has practiced extensive exchanges and cooperation with international organizations, financial institutes and relevant governments in the field of energy saving and comprehensive utilization and environmental protection.
In addition to the Sino-Canadian cooperation project on cleaner production, we initiated the project of Industrial Energy Saving with the Asian Development Bank, as well as initiating projects such as the China Energy Saving Promotion, the China Renewable Energy Industrialization Development Promotion, and so forth, wit h both the GEF and the World Bank.
We are willing to join hands with everybody to make our due contribution to the renewable development of China.
Thank you.
