During the second plenum of the ongoing 27th session of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), which was attended by Li Peng, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, Li Meng, vice-chairman of the NPC Environment and Resources Protection Committee, explained the clean production law.

Clean production and proposed requirements

Clean production, a concept borrowed from abroad meaning more environmentally-friendly production, aims to control pollution during the whole production process, from design, energy and raw materials selection, and processing technology, to equipment maintenance and service.

According to Li Meng, publicizing the law will help various departments to take responsibility for promoting clean production and fire up industry enthusiasm for adopting clean production.

The draft law, tabled to the NPC Standing Committee for its first deliberation, announces three types of requirements, namely, directive requirements, compulsory requirements and voluntary requirements.

The compulsory requirements include recycling of some specified products and packaging, and for polluters to make regular reports on emissions.

Preferential measures advocated

The draft law also advocates some preferential measures for those who adopt the clean production model, such as preferential loans and tax cuts or exemptions.

China started to promote clean production in 1993 and the concept was being trialed in 24 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country.

The United States, Germany and Japan promulgated similar laws during the 1990s.

In another development, Li Boyong and Qiao Xiaoyang, both vice-chairmen of the NPC Law Committee, explained to the session amendments of draft laws on safe production and water, both of which were tabled for their second deliberation.

Zhu Lilan, vice-chairperson of the NPC Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee, also delivered a speech to the assembly on a draft law to encourage science and technology, which was presented to the NPC Standing Committee for its first deliberation.

(People's Daily April 27, 2002)