Environmental Protection Permit for New Project to Be Stricter    

China will try to set up a permit regulation upon pollutants producing strength of new project, according to Zhang Lijun, deputy minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection at a national conference held in Shanghai February 23rd-25th. The pollutants producing strength - amount of pollutants formed along with per weight of product, will be the permit threshold for new proposed projects and also be the red line for an existing project to continue or be offline. It will be used to judge the level of environmental protection and economic development. As for chemical firms, the pollutants producing strength will be decided by the level of production technology and advancing performance of environmental protection management. The environmental protection department will set up the pollutants producing strength index system in two years.     
   To reduce pollutants, the firms in all industries need to reduce the pollutants producing strength, comments Zhang. As for new project, the environmental permit through this ongoing rigid control index will be a firewall for the production technology with a high pollutants producing strength. The existing projects will also get involved in the reform of clean production.
   This coming index will also be listed as an important permit index for environmental impact assessment and firms who apply for getting listed. According to a report of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, around 50% of firms that apply for getting listed in the stock market have not passed the environmental protection check at their first application since 2006.