Chinese Enterprises Face Shutdown if they Fail to Control PollutionChinese industrial enterprises will be forced to shut down if they fail to meet national standards for pollution control in less than 50 days, an environmental official stressed November 12.Lu Xinyuan, director of the Pollution Control Department under the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), said that the State Council requirement to meet the standards by the end of this year will be applied to all enterprises equally without discrimination. According to the latest statistics from SEPA, about 93 percent of China's 238,000 industrial polluters met the standards by the end of September after making technical renovations. So far, 86 percent of the 17,925 enterprises causing serious pollution have passed the standards after making improvements and 77 percent of 620 key enterprises in China are now also up to the mark. The pass rate for industrial polluters in west China was 16 percentage points lower than that in east China, and only 71 percent of the key enterprises in west China have met the qualification standards, 21 percentage points lower than that in east China. Most of the key enterprises that failed to meet the standards are located in Guizhou and Sichuan provinces and Chongqing Municipality in the southwest, Ningxia in the northwest, Guangxi in the south, Jiangxi Province in the east, and Inner Mongolia in the north. The failed State key enterprises are mainly in the metallurgical, chemical, coal, non-ferrous metals, construction materials and light industrial sectors. The SEPA official cited connivance and protection by local governments as the major barriers to the over 15,600 pollution makers meeting the standards. In the coming days, SEPA and China's related departments will increase their inspections of polluting industries. Those with no chance of meeting State requirements will be forced to shut down. |
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