Protecting China's environment

Environmental protection in China is considered increasingly important to helping realize sustainable economic development. The central government's response to the global financial crisis is providing a golden opportunity to better implement environmental policies.

China has made great efforts during the past several years promoting  environmental protection.

China is focused on increasing domestic consumption and ensuring stable development. But this doesn't mean the environment has to suffer. On the contrary, environmental protection policies are considered crucial to transforming China's economic growth pattern.

Zhang Lijun, vice minister of Ministry of Environmental Protection, said, "China is focusing on improving the quality of our environmental evaluation work. For industries with that consume a lot of energy and cause a lot of pollution, we won't hesitate to act against them. In 2008 alone, we suspended or delayed construction of 29 large projects in petro-chemicals, power generation and the energy sector, involving a total investment of over 160 billion yuan. Because environmental protection measures in these projects are not powerful enough."

And more funding is being allocated to environmental protection in China. The investment in this area accounts for more than five percent in China's four-trillion-yuan economic stimulus package. Since the last quarter of 2008, the central government has allocated more than 16 billion yuan to this field. The effort seems to be paying off. Authorities say in the first quarter of this year, the emission of major pollutants like sulfur dioxide in major cities has dropped 4.9 percent.