China will spend 75 billion yuan ($11.15 billion) to curb heavy metal pollution in the next five years, according to a report of Hubei Daily.
China aims to reduce the amount of heavy metal pollutant emissions in 14 key provinces by 15 percent by 2015, compared with the level in 2007, and to keep the pollution levels in other provinces lower than those in 2007, the China Environment News reported, citing Zhou Shengxian, head of the Ministry of Environment Protection.
The State Council, China’s Cabinet, has approved the 12th Five Year Plan (2010-2015) on heavy metal pollution prevention and management, according to the website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
This plan listed 14 provinces or autonomous regions, including Hubei, as “key areas” to prevent heavy metal pollution, according to the Hubei Daily report. Key areas will be granted more funds.
The full text of the plan remains undisclosed, citing an unnamed official from the ministry.
China also aims to establish a fairly complete system of heavy metal pollution prevention and management by the year 2015, to set up an emergency response system and an environmental and health risk assessment system.
This policy dovetails with China’s recent policies to produce greater benefit to the country from metals exports. Export customers are certain to bear the burden of the program’s cost, and Chinese officials have remarked over the past year that they are comfortable with tripling the price of strategic industrial metals, in order to advance the country’s infrastructure.
