China's Sichuan to Invest over $10.4 Billion in Environmental Protection

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). On May 10, Vice-Governor of China's central Sichuan province announced that the province will invest $10.4 billion in environmental protection in the coming four years, which nearly doubles that of last five years.

In last decade, Sichuan has invested over $6.52 billion in environmental protection, among which 20% came from government, 70% from enterprises and 10% from social investment. In 2007, the provincial government will invest $44 million from the public budget, which is an increase of 21.9% compared with that of last year.

Among the $10.4 billion to be invested, $7.1 billion will go to ten key projects, which include: 139 polluted water treatment works, 106 garbage disposal centers, 40 drinking water protection projects, 36 integrated projects for polluted rivers, 73 ecologic protection and restoration projects, 460 projects addressing industrial pollution, 90 project models for clean production and recyclable economy, 23 dangerous trash and medical garbage disposal projects, 8 projects for rural environmental protection and a project for environmental protection institutions.

Sichuan is located in Central China's Sichuan Basin, where a series of mountains block cold air from Northern China and thus make the province damp all the year round. Air pollutants are also not easy to drift away. Sichuan's per capita energy consumption was down by 1.8% last year, but nowhere near the 4% target, so the government still sees improving environment conditions as its top priority.

Last month, Sichuan's environmental protection bureau announced that the province's capital city Chengdu ranked one from bottom in air and environmental conditions. The main cause for the foul air is excessive tail-pipe emission. The whole province also suffers from serious acid rain and 70% of all its 1,000 rivers with a drainage area larger than 100 square kilometers are polluted, among which 250 rivers are below class four and regarded as useless.

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