China will make more efforts to harmonize the relationship between environmental protection and economic development in the new century and achieve "win-win" results in the two fields.

At a conference on national environmental protection, Tuesday, Director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), Xie Zhenhua, declared the goal.

Xie noted that China will have an annual population increase of more than 10 million in the next five to 10 years, with an economic growth rate by over 7 percent. The western regions of China still face a weak environmental situation. Any improper economic development will endanger the environmental safety.

He said that China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) will raise higher demand for the nation to protect the environment.

It takes time to realize the economic restructuring, thus the outmoded style of unsustained consumption will threaten and challenge the protection task.
He pointed out policies combining environmental protection and economic development call for further implementation in China, and the legal system to be reinforced.

In rural areas, the protection work is relatively weak, as technology and equipment in the sector has fallen short of the demand, and the foundation and capacity for environmental protection waits to be improved.

In the Ninth Five-Year period (1996-2000), China has painstakingly controlled pollutant discharge and enhanced economic restructuring, mainly closing down 15 kinds of small factories releasing serious pollutants; forced enterprises wasting resources and the large pollution makers to shut down, and promoted economic restructuring.

In the past three years, SEPA advocated clean production in the technical renovation of enterprises, with a demand on combining laws and regulations on environmental protection with economic policies. It pushed forward the urban facility construction, enhanced the pollution-preventing capacity, increased investment to environmental protection and boosted domestic economy.

To cope with the situation of economic globalization, China implemented the international environmental standards of ISO14000 and promoted green food products for the international market for the preparations of China's entry into World Trade Organization.

(Xinhua 01/09/01)