Government to Encourage Foreign Investment in Environmental Protection

May 31, 2005

Pan Yue, Deputy Director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, recently announced that the Chinese government will introduce mechanisms to attract foreign investment in environmental protection, according to a Xinhua report.

Pan Yue, Deputy Director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, recently announced that the Chinese government will introduce mechanisms to attract foreign investment in environmental protection, according to a Xinhua report. The announcement comes after the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) proposed plans to increase the use of economic measures to promote environmental protection. The government officially encourages investment in environmental industries in the Catalogue Guiding Foreign Investment.

The effort to encourage additional foreign investment in technologies to protect the environment may be a response to announcements that environmental protection investment targets for 2001-2005 will not be met, as reported in Xinhua in late March. While the focus on increased investment in environmental protection projects is positive, the absence of legislation to protect the projects and ensure proper implementation at the local level may prevent project goals from being realized, as the author of a China Daily article comments.