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December 27, 2019

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Slowdown will not effect China鈥檚 environmental goals

CHINA will maintain its environmental goals and will not ease off in trying to achieve them even as the economy slows, an environment ministry official said yesterday.

The Cabinet last year issued a guideline for some important anti-pollution targets to be reached by the end of 2020 and there will be no adjustments on them, said Xu Bijiu, director general of the general office at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

“It’s like ... rowing a boat against the current,” Xu told a media briefing in Beijing. “We have no other choice but to go forward.”

China’s gross domestic product growth slowed to 6.0 percent year-on-year in the third quarter.

“The environment and the economy are not opposites” but can move in the same direction, Xu said, pointing out that GDP had grown from 59 trillion yuan (US$8.43 trillion) in 2013 to 90 trillion yuan in 2018, while air pollution had been reduced over that time.

The ministry would maintain its pollution controls precisely and scientifically, implementing special audits in areas with obviously worsening air quality and strengthening assistance for non-key areas, ministry spokesman Liu Youbin said.

Xu said the ministry would promote preferential environmental tax policies for private firms that face financing difficulties, adding that a national green development fund would be launched in 2020.


 

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