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Environmental Deterioration Basically Under Control in China
China has managed to curb its environmental deterioration from developing after years of painstaking efforts, with the environment improved in some cities, a top environmental official said Wednesday.
Addressing a forum on forest and environmental protection, Zhu Guangyao, vice-director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, said China has reduced waste discharge in the last couple of years thanks to a large-scale readjustment of the industrial structure and technological upgrading.
The discharge volume of 12 major pollutants dropped by 15 percent between 1995 and last year, he said.
China has also shut down 84,000 polluting enterprises, mostly small and medium-sized ones, and about 90 percent of the country's 238,000 industrial firms meet the waste discharge standards set by central and provincial governments.
China launched its largest ever environmental protection program in 1996 to reduce industrial pollution nationwide and improve the quality of air and water in 46 major cities.
So far, 36 cities have met the standards on water quality, and 25 cities have passed the air quality test. Progress has been made in pollution control in some sections of major rivers, rural and urban areas and sea areas, he said.
Citing Beijing as an example, he said the city has invested a total of 40 billion yuan (about 4.8 billion U.S. dollars) in the past several years to reduce air and water pollution and improve the environment.
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