The environmental protection industry is expected to enjoy a 15 percent growth rate per year during the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-05), a key government official said recently at a national conference on the subject.
By 2005, the total output value of the country’s environmental protection industry is expected to amount to 200 billion yuan (US$24 billion), said Wang Wanbin, vice-minister of the State Economic and Trade Commission.
More than 10,000 environmental protection enterprises and institutions in China were operating at the end of last year, employing about 180,000 workers.
The Chinese Government is determined to make more efforts to develop this sector.
Environmental protection enterprises in China are urged to introduce and make use of advanced foreign technologies so that they can be competitive after China enters the World Trade Organization later this year or early next year.
China also is working to establish an orderly and open market for the environmental protection industry in a bid to upgrade the technical level of the industry.
(eastday.com 07/31/2001)
