2011-7-1   Source:Ministry of Envirinmental Protection

The Exhibition on Environmental Protection Achievements during the "11th Five-Year Plan" Period & the 12th CIEPEC was opened in Beijing today. Chen Zhili, Vice Chair of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress declared the opening of the exhibition. Vice Chairman Abdul' ahat Abdulrixit of CPPCC attended the opening ceremony. MEP Minister Zhou Shengxian gave a speech and Vice Minister Wu Xiaoqing chaired the opening ceremony. 

On behalf of Ministry of Environmental Protection and sponsors of the exhibition, MEP Minister Zhou Shengxian expressed heartfelt thanks to all stakeholders who have supported and actively taken part in environmental protection cause and all comrades working in environmental protection institutions and agencies across the country over the past years. He also expressed his warm welcome to all guests and exhibitors. 

MEP Minister Zhou Shengxian said, the "11th Five-Years" is the extraordinary five years in history of our country and also the five years when environmental protection cause is able to accomplish great deeds. Over the past 5 years, the Chinese Government has put environmental protection at a more important strategic position and put forward important strategies such as the development of ecological civilization, facilitation of historic transformations of environmental protection work, ecological restoration of rivers and lakes, environmental protection as an important public welfare and exploration of new path to environmental protection with Chinese characteristics. Taking emission reduction of major pollutants as a compulsory target of the plan for national economic and social development, we have make more efforts in addressing pre-eminent environmental problems affecting scientific development and threatening public health with remarkable progress in environmental protection work. These are shown in the following four areas:

First, the task of reducing the emissions of major pollutants has been met ahead of schedule. SO2 emission and COD discharge goes down by 14.29% and 12.45% respectively during the "11th Five-Year Plan" period compared with that of 2005, both meeting emission reduction task ahead of schedule, both meeting the 10% reduction target ahead of schedule. 

Second, the comprehensive role of environmental protection in optimizing economic development has become increasingly important. MEP has deepened the practice of environmental impact assessment of construction projects. It has rejected, turned down, suspended the approval or returned the environmental impact statements of 822 construction projects failing to meet the requirements since 2006, involving total investment of nearly 3200 billion Yuan. It has sent over 11 million person-times of environmental law enforcement workers and banned and shut down more than 20,000 enterprises that discharged pollutants against environmental protection law. 

Third, efforts in prevention and control of pollution of key regions and river basins have been enhanced. We have established the examination system for water quality of trans-province boundary river sections of key river basins in an all round way. The findings show that by the end of 2010, 80.9% of river sections under monitoring program met national surface water quality standard. It has established and improved new mechanism for joint prevention and control of regional air pollution and successfully finished the tasks of ensuring good air quality during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and Guangzhou Asian Games after the great success of "Green Olympics" in 2008. 

Fourth, environmental quality has been under continuous improvement. In 2010, the average concentration of permanganate value of river sections under national monitoring program went down by 31.9% compared with that of 2005. The annual average of urban SO₂ concentration of key cities on environmental protection went down by 26.3% compared with that of 2005. The proportion of river sections of 7 big waters across the country under national monitoring program meeting Grade Ⅲ water quality standard went up from 41% in 2005 to 59.9% now. 

MEP Minister Zhou Shengxian pointed out, the Exhibition on Environmental Protection Achievements during the "11th Five-Year Plan" period is a satisfactory answer paper to CCCPC, State Council and the general public. The exhibition is a concentrated reflection of the achievements and process of all employers in environmental protection institutions across the country and all departments and industries in implementation of the outlook on scientific development; active development of ecological civilization; acceleration of the historic transformations of environmental protection and exploration of new path to environmental protection with Chinese characteristics that is small in cost, sound in benefits, low in emissions and sustainable in development. The CIEPEC is the largest and most influential environment technical exchange & cooperation platform and exhibition in China. 2011 CIEPEC is the 11th since 1986 when the First CIEPEC was held. Over 500 Chinese and international enterprises from nearly 20 countries and regions attend 2011 exhibition. They bring state-of-the-art environmental protection technologies and equipment, which will play an active role in effective control of environment pollution and promotion of development of environmental protection industry in our country. 

MEP Minister Zhou said, 2011 is the first year of the "12th Five-Year Plan" period. The future five years are the period full of hope for environmental protection cause of China and a key period for overcoming difficulties. Based on the requirement of the Outline of the "12th Five-Year Plan", the philosophy for environmental protection work is centering on the theme of scientific development, main line of shifting economic development mode and new requirement for uplifting ecological civilization; making overall arrangements for total reduction of pollution discharge, improvement of environmental quality, risk prevention and balanced urban-rural development; focusing on addressing pre-eminent environmental problems affecting scientific development and threatening public health and exploring a new path to environmental protection in China which is small in cost, round in benefits, low in emission and sustainable in development. It is expected that by 2015, there will 16% reduction of energy consumption per unit GDP, 17% reduction of CO₂ emission per unit GDP, 8% reduction of total SO₂ emission and COD discharge as well as 10% reduction of ammonia nitrogen and NOx emissions compared with that of 2010 with remarkable improvement of eco environment quality. 

MEP Minister Zhou Shengxian said, we should do well our work in the following four areas and strive for opening a new situation of environmental protection during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period. 

1) Design new development of environmental protection cause from a new starting point. Environmental protection in China will be at a new historical starting point in the "12th Five-Year Plan" period. We will new journey of achievement of scientific development, acceleration of shift of economic development mode and improvement of public welfare. We will comprehensively design, review and arrange environmental protection work taking account of the big picture of national economic and social development as well as macro strategy. 

2) Focus on the difficulties and facilitate the coordination and harmony between environmental protection and economic development. We will mainstream environmental protection requirement into economic and social development process so that each link of economic development will be conducive to protection and improvement of the environment. Environmental protection departments will take initiative to take part in macro regulation. Giving full play to the role of environmental protection in optimizing economic development, we will facilitate the transformation of economic development mode and economic restructuring. 

3) Make breakthrough in key tasks and ensure remarkable progress in scientific development and improvement of public welfare. The focuses of environmental protection work during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period are addressing pre-eminent environmental problems affecting scientific development and threatening public health; strictly control and reject "projects with high consumption of energy and pollution or resource oriented", low-level redundant construction and construction projects with excessive productivity and prioritizing the addressing of heavy metal pollution, POPs and soil pollution. 

4) Address hot issues and make more efforts in emission reduction. Emission reduction is the highlight of the "11th Five-Year Plan" period and hot issue of the "12th Five-Year Plan". According to the requirements of bigger objective, stricter measures and more efforts, we will focus on emission reduction by industrial restructuring and keep on emission reduction by pollution control projects and management. We will facilitate reduction of SO2 emission and COD discharge; actively innovate our measures; take effective measures in areas such as denitrification in coal-fueled power plants, purification of vehicle emissions and prevention and control of agricultural non-point pollution; accelerate the reduction of NOx and ammonia nitrogen, and turn emission reduction into a highlight of environmental protection during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period. 

After the opening ceremony, Ms. Chen Zhili visited the exhibition hall of environmental protection achievements during the "11th Five-Year Plan" period accompanied by MEP Minister Zhou Shengxian. She visited the main exhibition board in general exhibition area, area of the Study on Macro Strategy for Environment of China, model on prevention and control of water pollution in the Songhua River basin and other model exhibition area—Key Research Project on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution and environment satellite monitoring model, environment emergency response monitoring area and exhibition area of local governments. 

Accompanied by Vice Minister Wu Xiaoqing, Vice Chairman Abdul' ahat Abdulrixit visited local exhibition area, model on prevention and control of water pollution of the Songhua River Basin, projecting sand table of the Taihu Lake watershed, model of environment monitoring satellite and big bionic equipment that removes blue algae and exhibition areas for relevant enterprises. 

MEP Vice Minister Li Ganjie, head of MEP Discipline Inspection Group Fu Wenjuan; Hu baolin and He Jie, members of MEP Leading Party Members Group, Chief Engineer Wan Bentai and MEP Chief Engineer on Nuclear safety Yang Chaofei attended the opening ceremony. 
NPC Environmental Protection and Resource Conservation Committee, CPPCC Committee of Population, Resources and Environment, NDRC, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, leaders of Beijing Municipal Government and Hong Kang Special Administrative Region, relevant heads of local environmental protection departments as well as the representatives of exhibitors attended the opening ceremony.