Wu Zhenglong, governor of Jiangsu, demanded that more efforts should be made to intensify, strengthen, and scientifically improve the intrinsic safety level of the chemical industry so as to promote the green, safe and high quality development of the chemical industry. He made the remarks at a working conference held on Monday, 12 days after the deadly chemical plant blast in Xiangshui that claimed 78 lives.
Wu Zhenglong pointed out that we must learn from the painful lessons of the chemical plant blast in Xiangshui by reflecting on the gap in the practice of new ideas, and adhering to the gap in the development of the people-centered ideology to further correct the development for the sake of political gains, doing a good job in rectifying and upgrading the chemical industry, and upholding the red line of production safety.
Wu emphasized that the chemical industry is the pillar industry of the national economy, and the goal should be set around promoting intrinsic safety, green development, environmental friendliness and various risk hazards.
He demanded that the layout of chemical plants should be more optimized by shutting down or relocating chemical enterprises within 1 km of both sides of the Yangtze River tributary and those in environmentally sensitive areas, urban densely populated areas, chemical parks, and of low industrial scale.
The government should set clearer targets in the location of the chemical parks by settling safe and controllable enterprises in the parks and implementing closed management so as to effectively improve the green, low-carbon, recycling, intelligent and safe operation levels. The access threshold and standards should be made higher by raising the standards in terms of safety, environmental protection, technology, energy consumption, and average benefits. At the same time, a more scientific negative list of industries is to be developed.
The governor demanded more efforts to improve the professional level of workers, speed up the pace of mechanization and automation, and crack down on illegal activities in accordance with the law. Supervision should be more comprehensive and stricter by strengthening capacity building, giving full play to the role of fiscal funds so as to concentrate efforts on bigger achievements.
Wu Zhenglong emphasized that government departments at all levels in the province should profoundly learn the lessons from production safety accidents, oppose formalism, resolutely curb the occurrence of serious accidents and ensure the safety of people's lives and property.
The notice from the State Council, released on Monday, deployed a thorough examination on potential hazards of dangerous chemicals across the country. All chemical industry parks should undergo safety risk assessments, it said.
