17 February 2013- The Ministry of Environmental Protection issues new 12FYP Environmental Protection Standards. According to the new plan, China plans to modify and consolidate 600 environmental standards into 300 during the 12FYP term.

The document identifies problems with the 11FYP environmental protection standards including:

• inconsistency and incompleteness between standards;
• lack of support for key tasks in environmental protection management;
• weak promotion of the standards, their  implementation and assessment thereof; and
• admitting not enough research went into setting the standards, rendering them less effective.

In addressing these issues, the new plan states that it will focus on better coordination between departments, better construction and management of existing structures and stronger research support, with more assessments and international coordination.

A total of RMB211 million will be spent on these improvements outlined in the plan broken down as follows:

• RMB 142 million –  Modification of environmental standards
• RMB 10 million – Assessment of enforcement
• RMB 9 million – Promotion and training
• RMB 50 million – Design, capacity construction and management of environmental protection standards

See the full Chinese plan here.