The Comprehensive Plan for Reducing Energy Consumption and Pollutant Emissions of the Guangdong Province stated that the total production and energy consumption for the province will have been reduced by 16% by the year 2010, compared with the figure at the end of the Tenth Five Year Plan Period. The total production and energy consumption for the major industries will be in line with the international level.  Water consumption for industrial use will have been reduced by 20%, whereas Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Emissions of Sulphur Dioxide will have dropped by 15% over that of the year 2005, maintaining at the level of 899,000 tons and 1,100,000 tons respectively. The sewage treatment rate for domestic sewage of the province will maintain at a level over 60%. The overall re-cycling rate of solid industrial waste will reach 85%.

According to the strategic plans of the Guangdong Committee and Guangdong Government, the Guangdong Province will strive to have 3% of the GDP to be invested in protecting the environment. Six major projects include ecological environment protection and construction works, zonal sewage treatment and improvement work on the rivers and canals, desulphurization in power plants, solid waste treatment, radioactive waste and radioactive tailings treatment, alert system for environment monitoring. Waste treatment and the Pearl River works are the two major tasks, while emphasis will also be placed on desulphurization of power plants and the set up of waste water treatment plants, as well as waste water treatment facilities for the towns and the cities. These will bring forth tremendous business opportunities for the environmental protection market of Guangdong.

In order to meet the targeted quantity of COD, the facilities of the waste water treatment plants must be stepped up. In 2007, Guangdong had increased its waste water treatment capacity by 1 million tons. By the year 2010, the requirement is 11 million tons. Therefore, waste treatment plants will have to be in place in the towns and cities of the Pearl River Delta Region as well as those in other counties and cities.

Before 2008, desulphurization facilities for existing coal-fired power plants of more than 125,000 kilowatts or above will have to be in place. For power plants which are newly constructed, re-constructed, or expanded, there should be desulphurization facilities for gas and smokes, and a strict control over BCHP (Building Cooling, Heating and Power projects. Coal fired power plants must have online automated surveillance facilities installed, ledger accounts for the desulphurization operations, enhanced monitoring of the daily operations. By the end of the year 2007, all desulphurization systems for coal combustion will have to be connected with the online automated surveillance system of the provincial power plants.

The online surveillance system for pollutants should be implemented at a greater speed, while the monitoring mechanism for reduction of pollutants emissions should be improved. By the end of 2008, the online surveillance system for pollutants sources, waste water treatment plants and power plants in the Pearl River Delta Region should be completed and these systems should be linked with the system of the provincial environment protection bureau.

In order to achieve the target of pollutants emissions reduction, the Guangdong Province will in the next two years invest heavily on stepping up the monitoring and surveillance standard. Control centre will be set up in five major places of Guangdong – namely Guangzhou, Swatow, Shenzhen, Maoming, Zhao Guan mobile surveillance mechanism for the entire province will be set up, which includes mobile surveillance vehicles for emergency purposes, quality control system for environment surveillance data collection.  The eleventh Five-Year-Plan of the Environment Protection and Ecology constructions of the Guangdong Province stated that the budget for setting up an advanced alert information system amounted to 2.3 billion yuan.  At the same time, in order to reduce pollutants emissions and to improve air quality, the water monitoring system for the Pan Pearl River Delta Region will gradually be established.

In addition, the ten energy saving projects will be speeded up, so that the 20 million ten standard coal saving capacity will be reached during the eleventh Five-Year-Plan Period.  These projects are: re-using the remaining heat and remaining pressure as well as adopting energy saving measures and using petrol substitutes in industries of high energy consumption such as the steel industry, cement industry, petrochemical industry, Chemical industry, construction materials industry, etc.; energy conservation in the power generators in industries such as power plants, metallurgical industry, petrochemicals, textiles, foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals, construction materials, etc.; improving the efficiency of energy consumption in industries such as metal refineries, petrochemicals, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and the construction materials industries, etc.; set up and re-construct the power generators systems; start up the EGC conservation technology and application testing; organize eight demonstrative projects on low energy consumption and green construction projects, start up large scale public construction works on energy conservation management and re-construction; kick off 15 promotion projects on renewable energy in sizeable construction works and their applications; promote the use of 5 million items of lighting products with high efficiency and government office and large scale construction will lead on the project to change for energy saving lightbulbs.

According to the relevant national policies, foreign investors are encouraged to invest on energy conservation projects, high-tech industry, capital-intensive type of industries, environmental friendly industries, and items which have a stringent control on the high energy consumption or high pollution level. The top 500 multi-national corporations will be encouraged to set up their regional headquarters, research centres, procurement centres in the Guangdong Province. Statistical indicators for foreign investment will be improved, in particular the performance indicators on the collective use of land, environment protection, and energy conservation. Trading companies of manufactured goods are encouraged to upgrade for more vertical or horizontal expansion along their own production chain, such as research and development, design and marketing services, establishing their own brands, etc.

The eleventh Five-Year-Plan of the Environment Protection and Ecology Construction for the Guangdong Province also stated that more efforts will be put on developing the environment protection industry. Governments will integrate environment protection into the national economic and social development plan, with more emphasis on the construction and operations of infrastructures for environment protection, promoting the operation mode of relating to the markets, supports on  high-tech demonstrative projects related to environment protection industries, and the national production of related equipments, upgrade on the technology level of the entire province in relation to the environment protection industry and also on the management of pollution of the environment.

The Mayor of the Guangdong Province Mr Huang Huahua said, “We need to strongly develop the environment protection industry and to increase our overall capability in environment protection. Development plan will be formulated to execute the environment protection industry of the Guangdong Province and to realize the support policies. We will work hard to nurture the environmental protection industry to be the new high development point of the Guangdong Province.”