East China’s Jiangsu province held a meeting on Wednesday to be briefed on the feedback of the central environmental inspection team on the progress of environmental inspection in the province.
Lou Qinjian, secretary of the CPC Jiangsu Provincial Committee, delivered a speech at the mobilization meeting.
Ma Zhongping, head of Environmental Protection Inspectorate of the Central Government, addressed the meeting.
The meeting was presided over by Wu Zhenglong, governor of Jiangsu.
The Fourth Environmental Protection Inspectorate of the Central Government believes that Jiangsu has resolutely implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping’s thinking on the promotion of ecological civilization and the decision-making of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, as is evidenced by the promotion of high-quality development and focusing on the key areas and key issues so as to make remarkable progress and achievements in the rectification work.
The CPC Provincial Committee has since held 21 executive meeting, 24 provincial government executive meetings, and 11 provincial government special meetings to study and deploy the rectification requirements of the central environmental protection inspection team.
It has also held a meeting on the promotion of environmental protection along the Yangtze River Economic Belt so as to make the restoration of the ecological environment along the Yangtze River a top priority in the rectification work, promote the relocation of chemical enterprises on both sides of the Yangtze River to coastal areas, and improved the ecological environment for the centralized drinking water sources along the Yangtze River.
The province has so far cleaned up 2.84 million square meters of the main stream of the Yangtze River, shut down 779 chemical plants around the Taihu Lake so that the water quality in the lake has been maintained stable.
Efforts have been made to dredge and clean up more than 100 smelly rivers and lakes while the illegal sand mining in Hongze Lake and Luoma Lake has been reined.
Jiangsu has also installed new garbage treatment facilities averaging 6900 tons per day and new facilities for the treatment of hazardous materials averaging 890000 tons a day.
The province’s average PM 2.5 density was down 32.9% last year compared with figures in 2013.
By promoting urban-rural environmental overhaul, the province has revamped 189000 villages, built 63 national ecological counties, 16 national forest counties, 5 national ecological demonstration counties and 21 national demonstration parks.
In the meantime, Jiangsu has released series of policies and measures to implement the responsibility system for party and government leaders.
It has continued to carry out provincial-level environmental protection inspection and further increased law enforcement. In 2017, 148,000 cases of environmental violation were investigated with the penalty adding up to 960 million yuan.
534 cases of environmental violation were placed on file for criminal investigation with 1217 suspects arrested.
The sustained progress of environmental protection inspection has helped to boost the province’s transformation and upgrade and fuel the province’s high quality development. In 2017, the province’s added value of the tertiary industry accounted for 50.3% of the provincial total. The output value from the hi-tech and emerging industries increased 14.4% and 13.6% year on year. The province’s input in R&D investment accounted for 2.7% of its entire GDP while its regional innovation capacity continued to lead the country.
Lou Qinjian stated that the re-examination by the Fourth Environmental Protection Inspectorate of the Central Government has given favorable ratings on the progress Jiangsu has achieved and will strengthen the ecological environment protection and give better play to pollution control in the province.
He pledged that Jiangsu will make further efforts to promote environmental protection so as to meet the expectations of the CPC central committee and the central government and live up to the expectations of the people.
Wu Zhenglong demanded that party committees and government departments at all levels in the province will make concerted efforts for the promotion of environmental protection so as to boost the province’s high quality development and benefit the wellbeing of the local people.
The central government launched its first round of national environmental inspections in December 2015 after decades of growth left the country saddled with problems such as smog and contaminated soil. As of January this year, 31 provinces and regions had received feedback, according to Li, who said the inspections had played an effective role in solving a large number of environmental problems.
In 2016, the inspectors looked into 33,000 cases, imposing fines totaling 440 million yuan. A total of 720 people were detained and almost 6,500 people held accountable.
