Energy-intensive outdated capacity to be eliminated
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Outdated capacity in more than 2,000 energy-intensive and polluting factories will be eliminated, the Ministry of Industry and Information Industry (MIIT) announced Sunday.
The MIIT set the end of September as the deadline for these 2,087 factories from 18 industries such as cement, papermaking, iron alloys, dyeing, and steel production.
Companies that fail to shut down obsolete capacity before the deadline would be deprived of pollutant discharging licenses, further bank loans, and new land and project approval, said Li Yizhong, the head of the MIIT.
Li said that outdated capacity undermines energy efficiency, competitiveness and the quality of China's economy.
China has cancelled preferential electricity prices for energy-intensive companies in 22 provinces as of July 14, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said Friday.
The NDRC ordered local governments and power suppliers in May to stop offering favorable power prices to companies in other energy-intensive industries including aluminum, ferroalloy and calcium carbide makers.
It also raised power surcharges for high-polluting industries, as the government was alarmed by the rise in energy intensity in the first quarter of this year.
Though 2010 is the last year of China's five-year plan to cut energy intensity by 20 percent from the 2005 level to curb pollution, as the government pledged, energy intensity rose by 0.9 percent in the first half of the year from the same period 2009, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in July.
Energy intensity had been reduced 14.4 percent by the end of 2009 compared with the 2005 level, according to an NBS March report.
The International Energy Agency said last month that China has become the world's top energy user, consuming the equivalent of 2.25 billion tons of oil last year.
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