Opinions of the State Council on Speeding up the Development of Circular Economy

Opinions of the State Council on Speeding up the Development of Circular Economy

Guo Fa [2005] No.22

July 2, 2005

The people's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, all the ministries and commissions of the State Council, and all the institutions directly under the State Council,

Since the reform and opening-up, China has made positive achievements in boosting resource saving and comprehensive utilization and promoting clean production. However, there is no fundamental change on the traditional extensive way of economic growth, which is of high energy consumption, high discharge and low efficiency, the resource utilization efficiency is very low and environment pollution is serious. Meanwhile, there are such problems as imperfect regulations and policies, unsound systems and mechanisms, and the lagging behind of relevant technical development. In the first 20 years of this century, China will be in a stage of rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, and will face very severe resource and environment situation. In order to grasp the important strategic opportunities, and realize the strategic objective for building an overall well-off society, we shall make great efforts to develop circular economy, and shall, in light of the principle of "reduce, reuse and recycle", take various effective measures to obtain maximum economic output and minimum waste discharge by minimizing resource consumption and environment cost, so as to realize the consistency of economy, environment and social benefit, and build a resource saving and environmentally-friendly society. Therefore, we bring forward the following opinions.

I. Guidelines, Basic Principles and Main Objectives for Developing Circular Economy
1. Guidelines. We shall, under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of "Three Represents", establish and implement the scientific view of development, and shall, targeting improving resource productivity and reducing waste discharge, and taking technological innovation and systemic innovation as the motivity, enhance the consciousness of resource saving and environmental protection, strengthen construction of legal systems, improve policies and measures, and bring into play the role of market mechanism, so as to promote the growth of circular economy.
2. Basic Principles. We shall stick to taking a new pathway of industrialization, and form a way of production and consumption conducive to resource saving and environment protection; we shall continue to promote the adjustment of economic structure, accelerate technical progress, strengthen supervision and administration, and improve resource utilization efficiency, as well as reduce waste production and discharge; we shall enable the enterprises to become main players, combine government adjustment and control, market guidance and public participation, so as to build a policy system and social atmosphere conducive to boosting the growth of circular economy.
3. Development Objectives. We shall make efforts to establish a more perfect system of laws and regulations, policy support system, institutional and technological innovation system and stimulus and binding mechanism on the growth of circular economy in 2010. We shall greatly improve resource utilization efficiency, greatly reduce the wastes for final disposal in volume, and establish a large batch of typical enterprises complying with the requirements for the growth of circular economy. We shall promote green consumption, improve the system of recycling and reusing of renewable resources. We shall build a batch of industrial (agricultural) parks and zones and resource-saving and environmentally-friendly cities that comply with the requirements for the growth of circular economy.
4. Major Indicators. We shall make efforts to have the GDP from the output per ton of such 15 kinds of important resources improved by 25% compared with that in 2003, including energy, iron ore, non-ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals mine, and etc., and the energy consumption of GDP per 10 thousand Yuan shall be reduced by more than 18%. The average effective utilization coefficient of agricultural irrigation water shall be improved to 0.5, and the quantity of water intake of industrial added value per 10 thousand Yuan is reduced to 120 cubic meters. The total recycling rate of mineral resources and the rate of comprehensive utilization of coexisting minerals shall be improved to 5 percent respectively. The rate of comprehensive utilization of industrial solid waste shall be improved to more than 60%; the proportion of renewable copper, aluminum and lead reaches to 35%, 25% and 30% respectively, and the recycling and reusing of major renewable resources shall be improved to more than 65%. The stacking and disposal of industrial solid waste under control shall be around 0.45 billion tons; and the increasing rate of urban garbage under control shall be around 5%.
(The said relevant indicators shall be adjusted correspondingly according to the Eleventh Five-Year Plan)

II. Major Work and Key Links for the Growth of Circular Economy
5. Major Work. Firstly, we shall make great efforts to promote saving and reduce consumption, we shall save resources in production, construction, circulation, consumption and other various fields to reduce the consumption of natural resources. Secondly, we shall promote overall clean production and reduce waste generation from the source, so as to realize the transition from end-of-pipe control to pollution control and production process control. Thirdly, we shall make great efforts to carry out comprehensive utilization of resources, and realize the recycling of wastes and the recycling and reusing of renewable resources to the maximum extent.
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