More than 4.7 billion yuan has been invested since 1999 in the technical upgrading of Chinese producers of environmental protection equipment, a State Development Planning Commission official said Tuesday.
Of the total, 840 million yuan (US$101 million) came from treasury bonds allocated by the government, according to WangJianyu, deputy director of the machinery division of the commission's Department of Industrial Development, the China Daily reported Wednesday.
The rest of the money was contributed by the companies or local governments, among others, he said.
Wang said more than 100 Chinese companies across the country have benefited from such projects, designed to help Chinese companies introduce and master foreign advanced techniques to upgrade their production capacity.
It is estimated that the annual output value of China's environmental equipment industry will increase from the present over one billion yuan (US$120 million) to more than four billion yuan (US$482 million) by 2005.
Wang was attending the first China International Exhibition on Environmental Monitoring Instrumentation, which opened Tuesday in Beijing and will end Thursday.
(eastday.com October 30, 2002)
