The Tenth Five-Year Plan of the Environmental Protection Industry and its Development

The Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005) of the environmental protection industry was formulated as an instructive plan according to the requirements of ecological construction and environmental protection, which involves the production and management of environmental protection products, overall utilization of natural resources and environmental services.

1. Existing problems of the environmental protection industry in China

(1) An unreasonable industry structure
First of all, the dimensional structure of enterprises is unreasonable and there are not enough big enterprises or enterprise groups. Big-scale enterprises only account for 2.8 percent of the nation's environmental enterprises, 90 percent of which are small with inferior technological equipment and a low specialization level. Annual sales of China's biggest environmental enterprise total 300 million yuan (US$36.14 million).

Secondly, since the structure of environmental protection products is unreasonable and the level of formulation, serial production, standardization and nationalization of equipment is low, the phenomenon of repetitive construction is a very serious problem.

Surveys and analyses of more than 3,000 environmental protection products indicate that one-fifth of the products must be eliminated due to a deficiency in reliability or standardization and framework design, and two-fifths must be improved. While general products are in oversupply some forms of urgently needed pollution-treatment equipment is in grave short supply.

(2) Weakness in developing new technologies and low technological content in relevant products. The general level of development of China's environmental products is equivalent to the international level of the 1980s; most products lag almost 20 years behind the production level of developed countries.

(3) Market environment for fair competition must be further improved. The standardization system for the industry has not yet been established and unfair competition and local protectionism are widespread.

(4) The social-service system is not perfect.
Environmental protection services, which lag behind their foreign counterparts, are characterized by a low specialization level and cannot accommodate the development needs of the market economy. The absence of a healthy service system has also caused an inefficiency in equipment operations.
Furthermore, the scale and technological means of information consultancy services deviate from leading international standards and the construction of consultancy companies and agents does not satisfy market needs.

2. The situation and tasks facing the environmental industry

The Tenth Five-Pear Plan is an important period for China for speeding up ecological development and environmental protection. On one hand, market needs for protecting the environment are growing rapidly and bringing an unprecedented opportunity for the industry. On the other hand, the demand for protecting the nation's environment will become more pronounced, which, along with the intensive competition following China's accession to the World Trade Organization will bring huge pressures to the industry.

3. Development outlines, main objectives and key points

(1) Development outline
Priority will be given to the development of science and technology and enterprises will be major market players in the environmental protection industry. A macro-regulation system, opening-up and healthy competitive market mechanism will be installed to promote the industry's healthy development. Technological and material support will be provided to help the industry meet its requirements for more rigorous environmental protection to make the industry a new growth point for the national economy.

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