(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-22 07:12

The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) reiterated last week that those enterprises whose production is likely to cause heavy environmental pollution must have their pollution control facilities and conditions checked by the administration before getting listed.

The administration will notify the China Securities Regulatory Commission about whether the enterprises checked can be listed or not.

This is another coercive move by SEPA to thrust down the throat of the polluting firms the awareness of environmental protection after the green loans mechanism, which tries to prevent polluting firms from getting bank loans if they fail to pass environmental checks by SEPA.

The earnestness and persistence of SEPA are indeed admirable to reverse deteriorating environmental pollution nationwide. We believe what the administration has done and is doing, including its latest move to block the financing channels of polluting firms, will get somewhere.

But the undertone of excluding local governments from playing their due role in this thorny job is obvious: local governments are not doing a good job in stopping polluting firms from cutting corners and some even act as umbrellas to shelter these firms.

As required by the central government's five-year-plan, local governments have the responsibility to cut pollutant discharge by 10 percent from 2006 to 2010 and reduce consumption of energy by 20 percent per unit GDP.

Yet, the growth in such energy consuming and high pollution industries as power plants, steel, construction materials, nonferrous metal and oil refineries increased by more than 20 percent in the first six month this year after most parts of the country failed to meet the targets of cutting energy consumption and pollutant discharge last year.

Local governments are undoubtedly to blame for these failures. And local officials are yet to change their mentality of placing economic growth before environmental concerns.

In such circumstances, it will not be easy for SEPA to carry out its policy in stopping polluting firms from getting listed in the stock market or getting bank loans. It is particularly so when these firms are supported by local governments.

(China Daily 08/22/2007 page10)