Sewage water from a seafood market flows into Jialing River, a branch of Yangtze River, in Chongqing Municipality. (Photo : Reuters)
The Chinese government will go ahead with implementing tough controls on polluting industries as it announced plans to go after industrial plants in the 10 dirty industrial sectors on April 16, Thursday, the Global Times reported.
The report said that the new plan to curb water pollution is expected to enhance industries involved in environmental protection and bring estimated revenue of about 1.9 trillion yuan into the sector.
According to the report, the State Council has released the Action Plan for Water Pollution Prevention and Control with the aim to improve the country's overall water quality and reduce pollutants.
The State Council expects to make more than 93 percent of the cities' water supply to meet the standard of suitable drinking water by 2020, based on national standard.
The government said that small factories engaged in papermaking, pesticides, tanning and iron and steel manufacturing have weak environmental plans and they will be closed down by the end of 2016.
Bigger plants were also asked to update their technology to comply with emission standards, or they will also be shut down, the report said.
Based on the plan, more than 70 percent of the water in the seven major river valleys, including the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, should meet the standard by 2020.
Chen Mingzhong, director of the department of water resources under the Ministry of Water Resources, said in September last year that about 68.6 percent of water in those rivers have met the standard in 2014, an increase of about 1.6 percent from 2012 records.
"The government's efforts to combat water pollution have been focused on major river valleys. The new plan has more comprehensive and systematic coverage with the inclusion of small water streams," Wang Dong, research fellow with the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, told the Global Times.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection revealed in a report in March last year that there is lack of safe drinking water for about 280 million people in China.
With the new plan, the government has vowed to set aside over 70 billion yuan ($11.25 billion) to enforce the clean water action plan, strengthen the protection of drinking water sources and curb water pollution in key river basins.
