Policies and legislation on environmental protection will be improved during the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-05) to ensure the country's environmental goals for the period can be reached.

The Third National Conference on Environment Policies and Legislation was held over the weekend in Beijing to review past developments in the field and to work out a blueprint for future work.

Minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration Xie Zhenhua said at the conference that integrated policies which bring together both environment policies and economic and social development policies should be made to expedite finding solutions to key environmental, economic and social problems.

He said forces from all social sectors should be united to study strategies for environmental protection so that experience from all sides can be brought into play in policy making.

The minister said there should be more public participation in the making of environmental policies. He urged that more efforts be made to formulate environmental protection laws and regulations and strengthen their enforcement.

He stressed that inspection of critical environmental problems in the western regions will be carried out in order to curb any new environmental pollution and ecological damage during the development of the west and to prevent the transfer of pollution from the east to the west.

He added that an administrative supervision system should be established to watch for breaches of duty committed by environmental protection officials.

Xie also called on environmental protection departments at all levels to spare no efforts in improving the capability of staff enforcing environmental laws and regulations.

China has so far enacted seven environmental protection laws, over 10 natural resources development laws, and more than 30 administrative rules and documents on environmental protection.

More than 470 national environment standards have been established in China and the country has also signed and approved more than 30 international conventions on environmental protection.

Xie said that there are still problems with China's environmental policies and legal system.

(China Daily November 5, 2002)