Private contractors to be invited in pollution battle  

環保部擬向社會購買環保服務 防資金被雁過拔毛

《經濟參考報》記者日前從環保部權威人士處獲悉，為了防止相關部門和企業“雁過拔毛”，蠶食相關環保資金，目前環保部擬出臺《政府采購環境服務指導意見》(以下簡稱《意見》)，征求意見工作已經基本完成并報送。[查看全文]

(ECNS) -- China's Ministry of Environmental Protection is planning to unveil a draft on government procurement of environment service to prevent depletion of environment protection funds.

Professional enterprises will replace local governments to construct and operate pollution monitoring systems, according to the Economic Information Daily, a newspaper under Xinhua News Agency, who cited an anonymous senior official.

The move is to better utilize the environment funds and attract private capital, the official said.

Collecting and disposing wastewater and solid waste from rural and urban citizens, river protection, urban landscaping and national park clean-ups are all included in the environment service.

Local government will no longer be involved in building wastewater disposal plants, the official said. A contractor will take on that work, and the government only needs to pay after getting results, such as how many tons of wastewater were disposed.

The move will fight appropriating environment funds for other uses, and invite more private capital in environmental protection fields, the official added.

To battle pollution, the central government has allocated 210.9 billion yuan ($33 billion) on energy-saving and environmental protection for 2014, and many local governments also allocated a large sum.