China’s environmental conservation efforts supported

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has signed six Japanese ODA loan agreements with the Government of the People’s Republic of China. Together they constitute the Fiscal 2007 Japanese ODA Loan Package for China, which focuses on environmental conservation.

All the projects supported by the loan package are environmental conservation projects

These projects are expected to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and those pollutants given high priority in China’s 11th Five-Year National Environment Protection Plan, and also to contribute to achieving environmental goals set in each project area

Planned environmental impacts include a reduction in SO₂ emissions by 30-40 thousand tons per year, which is equivalent to six times the annual emissions of Tokyo City, and reduction in chemical oxygen demand (COD) by 30 thousand tons per year, which is equivalent to 10% of the effluents flowing into Japan’s Inland Sea

The potential for reducing GHG emissions by installing centralised heat supply facilities, establishing bio-gas production facilities and developing landfill sites will be investigated carefully, with a view to possible application to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol.

The projects can be broadly grouped into the following four categories:

• Conservation of Air Quality — Centralised heat supply systems will be constructed in the Gansu Province Lanzhou City Atmospheric Environmental Improvement Project to reduce the use of small coal-fired boilers, which are a source of current air pollution.
• Comprehensive Environmental Measures — Water supply and sewerage systems, centralised heat supply systems and gas supply facilities will be constructed in the Xinjiang Environmental Improvement Project II, while sewerage systems and gas supply facilities will be constructed in the Henan Province Nanyang City Environmental Improvement Project.
• Solid Waste Treatment — Solid waste treatment facilities will be developed in the Hunan Municipal Solid Waste Treatment Project and the Anhui Municipal Solid Waste Treatment Project.
• Afforestation — Forest degradation and desertification will be addressed through foresting activities in the Qinghai Ecological Environmental Improvement Project to restore barren grassland

These projects address “environmental conservation and global issues,” one of the priority areas designated in the Japanese Government’s Economic Co-operation Programme for China, as well as in JBIC’s Medium-Term Strategy for Overseas Economic Cooperation Operations.

For more information, visit www.jbic.go.jp/autocontents/english/news/2008/000003/index.htm.