The Shanghai municipal government pledged yesterday that it will spend at least 3 percent of the city's gross domestic product (GDP) annually in the following three years on environmental protection.

"We will further increase spending (on environmental protection), as well as fines (on pollution), and the percentage is expected to rise continuously in the coming three to five years," said Xu Zuxing, director of Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau, yesterday at a regular press conference held by the municipal government.

According to Xu, the city has initiated a new three-year environmental protection plan (2003-05) and the expenditure budget will focus on six areas, including water, air, solid waste, afforestation, industrial pollution and agricultural contamination.

Shanghai's investment in environment protection topped 16.2 billion yuan (US$1.96 billion) in 2002, up 6.2 percent over the previous year and nearly 3 percent of the city's GDP, official statistics showed.

Xu promised yesterday that by 2005, Shanghai will be among the cleanest cities in China, thanks to the huge investment program.

Shanghai's three-year environmental protection plan, sticking to the principle of the theme for the Shanghai World Expo 2010 - "Better City & Better Life," covers 273 projects in the six key areas.

"We have launched more than 40 percent of the projects since the plan was initiated in March," said Xu.

As a coastal city rich in water resources, the protection of these resources remains the most important task on the government's agenda, according to Xu.

She revealed that the city will establish three large sewage treatment plants along the Yangtze River and five medium-scales ones along the Hangzhou Bay and more than a dozen small plants along other rivers around the city over the next three to five years.

By 2005, Shanghai will be able to deal with 5.5 million tons of waste water per day and all of the city's sewage discharges can be "basically" disposed by then, according to Xu.

The Shanghai government is also studying a charging scheme for urban solid waste and local residents will have to pay fees on their daily discharges in the near future, she revealed.

In addition, earlier this month, the city government set up a high-profile environmental protection commission, headed by Mayor Han Zheng and consisting of senior municipal governmental officials from various departments.

Han said earlier that the new commission, the first of its kind among major cities on the Chinese mainland, will help guide and co-ordinate the efforts of relevant government departments in environmental protection work.

The commission also invited a number of senior officials and experts, including the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Executive Director Klaus Topfer, as consultants.

The Shanghai government was also urged to strengthen its co-operation with neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to achieve sustainable development in the economically booming Yangtze River Delta and set an example for other areas.

(China Daily September 12, 2003)