China’s Jiangsu Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment circulated a notification requesting strict control over the assessment and approval of chemical projects, noting that a few local authorities recently tried to speed up the approval process and lower environmental requirement, resulting in a rise of projects with high levels of energy consumption, pollution and emissions.
The main contents of the notification are:
The prohibition of the establishment of chemical parks and chemical production within 1 kilometer of the main streams and tributaries of the Yangtze River.
The strict control of chemical project approvals and the introduction of more stringent entry requirements, namely the prohibition of new chemical projects with an investment of less than Yuan1 billion, and the prohibition of new-builds, renovations or extensions of the three kinds of intermediate projects.
No new chemical industrial parks shall be approved, and no chemical production outside chemical industrial parks shall be approved except for chemical monitoring of locations, renovations related to safety, the environment, energy saving and oil quality improvements, as well as structural adjustments.
No expansion of chemical projects within chemical parks that have limited environmental infrastructure or are running unstably in the long-term will be allowed. New chemical projects, including relocations, must be resettled within a chemical park that has passed the EIA process, according to relevant laws and regulations. Newly-built hazardous chemical wharfs within 1 kilometer of the main streams and tributaries of the Yangtze River are prohibited.
It is also prohibited to build or expand chemical parks and chemical projects within 1 kilometer of the main streams and tributaries of the Yangtze River, and it is prohibited to build or expand high pollution projects outside compliant chemical parks, such as iron and steel, petrochemical, chemical, coking, and the production of similar materials and non-ferrous metals.