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| SARS bring chances for China's environment protection |
| CCTV.COM 2003-06-20 13:06:23 |
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SARS has brought both negative and positive influences to the future development of China. The environmental protection industry is one area that will benefit from the opportunities brought by the sudden occurrence of the disease.
During the SARS epidemic, the proper disposal of SARS related waste was a critical task that required urgent attention and the government spent millions of yuan to deal with the problem. Suddenly people realized the importance of dealing safely with not just SARS waste but all medical waste. Suddenly people realized that the issue had been ignored for a long time and that the infrastructure to deal with the problem was inadequate. But now more investment is on its way, to put a long－term solution in place.
"The State Council has required us to prepare a full plan about dealing with medical waste. In the next two to three years, more than 7 billion yuan or nearly 900 million US dollars will be invested in this plan. The issue is high on the agenda and we will begin right now. By 2005, around 2.5 billion US dollars will be invested. The SARS epidemic has sped up the implementation of the plan," said Xie Zhenhua, director of State Environment Protection Administration.
Many companies have benefited from the SARS－pushed demand in the past two months. The BMEI Company which specializes in building incinerators is one of them. The company earned revenue of 150 million yuan in April and May －－ more than half of their total annual revenue in just two months. And people in the industry believe that this is not just a short term boom in the business,but a long term opportunity.
"With the government's determined decision and huge investment to improve the environmental protection infrastructure facility, I think it's a good opportunity for us. It's a long－term plan. So we put more investment in R&D, to meet the changing demand in the industry," said Zhao Chuanjun, general manager of BMEI Co. Ltd.
The SARS has not only alerted the government to put more effort on environmental protection, it has also been a good lesson for the public.
"As one of the people in the industry, I have felt the increased investment of the government in the industry. The SARS has also promoted people's awareness of environmental protection. I think it's a good thing for the industry and for the country," said Xue Gang, director of Int'l Business Dept. of BMEI Co. Ltd.
China has over 18,000 companies in the environmental protection industry. But more than 80％ of them are small and medium sized companies with the fixed assets under 15 million yuan, or nearly 2 million US dollars.
Experts pointed out that China's environmental protection industry is still at an initial stage of development. There are only a few large companies in the field, most of them equipment processing plants rather than high－technology oriented companies. But the SARS epidemic has speeded up the upgrading and development of the environmental protection industry in China.
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Editor: Han Ling CCTV.com
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