On the 16th Session of the 12th NPC Standing Committee on August 27, Mr. Chen Jining, Minister of Environmental Protection, introduced the ministry’s efforts on industrial pollution prevention and treatment from three aspects: first, strengthened management of heavily polluting industries; second, encouraged chemical industry to be more concentrated and professional in establishment and management; third, intensified law enforcement and punishment.

Mr. Chen also pointed out that industrial pollution prevention and treatment is now facing many challenges, such as unreasonable industrial layout and structure, and backward production technologies, so four improvements are needed: first, to speed up transformation and upgrading in heavily polluting industries; second, to strengthen pollution prevention and treatment; third, to open the discharge permit system based in accordance with the law; fourth, to promote environment information disclosure and public participation, and conduct regular pollutants discharge examination. The permit pilot projects of discharge permit pricing and trade, as well as pinpointing heavily polluting enterprises, is estimated to complete by the end of 2015; and discharge permit will be applied all around China by the end of 2017.