AgroPages-Dow Chemical Chairman says Chinese environmental regulation shouldn’t be excessive-Agricultural news

Report

At the recent China Development Forum 2017, Andrew Liveris, chairman and chief executive officer of the Dow Chemical Company commented on China’s ongoing strict environmental regulations, saying that excessive regulation might scare away investors and also make it difficult to introduce environment-friendly technology or innovation.

Andrew Liveris, chairman and chief executive officer of the Dow Chemical Company

Liveris said in his keynote speech that a nation must ensure environmental sustainability at the time of economic growth. Today’s world is a fast-changing world and long-time environmental concerns bring new challenges to China and the world. Measures must be adopted to cope with the challenges.

He added that environmental regulatory measures need to be reasonable. Excessive or improper regulation might scare away investors and also make it difficult to introduce environment-friendly technology or innovation. Liveris further explained that regulation without scientific foundation would exert a heavy burden on other regions or even the global society.

Such a burden is an offset to environmental or other benefits that could have been achieved. In addition, if there is a difference in law enforcement, the results would be that new products could not enter Chinese market, which is no good for China’s environment and people’s health.

Great changes have indeed taken place in the pesticide industry since the initiation of the environmental compliance regulation campaign last year. Chinese government departments have been awarding more intensive punishment for industrial pollutant discharges, where the chemical industry has become a public target, which to large extent involves pesticide technical manufacturers, particularly intermediate manufacturers.

During the central government’s environmental inspection tour, industrial parks in several provinces or cities were requested to take correctional action. In the regions with lower environmental requirement, manufacturers that could not reach up to environmental standards were closed forever. Since the beginning of 2017, there has been no small impact on a number of intermediate and technical material manufacturing bases, which has led to the tight production and supply of lots of products, resulting in price rise all the way.

The Chinese government has currently adopted the “one size fits all” approach to its process of pollution control. This has imposed a big challenge for industrial production, having also attracted high degree of attention from international society. On the one hand, chemical industries are being relocated and centralized by local government in chemical industrial parks or being ousted from urban area.

Also, the local government is very reluctant to approve land use for chemical projects. On the other hand, government has adopted a “one size fits all” approach, which applies to all chemical enterprises. Till date, the construction of new chemical projects has been restricted in many provinces of China.

Is the “one size fits all” approach of the government a hypercorrection? Will it cause accidental injury to environmentally compliant manufacturers? Is it acceptable to the public? What should developed countries do in this regard? We welcome your comments in the questionnaire below.