In Mid-May,
2019, Shandong Province made the first announcement regarding 60 chemical
enterprises subjected to strict supervision. The result will be examined and approved
during the coming executive meeting of the provincial government. The approval
will lead to an acceleration of rectification of the local chemical industry.
Since November 2017,
the government of Shandong Province has been conducting a special action in
terms of upgrading the production safety of the local chemical industry in
order to improve the efficiency and development of the chemical enterprises in
Shandong. Hence, for the sake of better administration, the standard of
chemical industrial areas is divided into three levels, consisting of “chemical
industrial parks”, “fine chemical industrial areas”, as well as “areas under
strict supervision”.
An “area under strict
supervision” is a large-scaled chemical enterprise with high level technology
that is located outside of chemical industrial parks and fine chemical
industrial areas on the list, and that meets standards of the industrial policy
in China. Further requirements are great contributions to taxation and the
allocation of perfect measures of safety and environmental protection.
It has to be clear
that an “area under strict supervision” does not mean an enterprise with lower
standard of management. Instead, the enterprise must meet all the same requirements
as in a chemical industrial park in the aspects of approval of projects, construction
and administration. This is true especially when it comes to safety and
environmental protection. Considering the actual situation and development of the chemical industry in
Shandong, this supervision is a powerful supplement to the local chemical
enterprises.
A qualified chemical industrial park determines an enterprise as an “area
under strict supervision”
The
identification of chemical enterprises under strict supervision follows that of
chemical industrial parks, for which there are two reasons. First of all, a
chemical enterprise is confirmed as an “area under strict supervision” based on
whether the chemical industrial park where it is located has successfully met
all the standards. If yes, there is no need for the enterprise to be identified
as such. In other words, the enterprise can start to arrange construction of
rectification. Only when an enterprise is located in an area that fails to meet
the requirements of declaration, will the enterprise be under strict
supervision.
In
addition, due to the fact that is it the first time in the history for the
government in Shangdong Province to take this action, the whole process is involved
with 12 relevant departments, such as safety department, environmental
protection department, land department, planning authority, and others. With
the substantial workload, the progress of identification has been affected to a
certain extent. It was not until April 29 that the government completed
verifying the first 60 chemical enterprises under strict supervision.
Areas under strict supervision include listed companies and listed
subsidiaries
According to the list
of 60 enterprises, some listed companies and subsidiaries are included, such as
Shandong Heda, Shida Shenghua, Linglong Tire, Binhua, Wanrun, Xinhua
Pharmaceutical, Nikko Chemical, Guangwei Composite Materials, Sanjiao Tire, and
Yanggu Huatai.
It is reported that
these 60 enterprises are characterized by relatively perfect conditions.
However, they have experienced some rectification during a period of time,
especially in the aspects of enterprise planning and regional environmental assessment.
For example, in terms of regional environmental assessment, the companies only
pay more attention to the environmental assessment of their own projects,
instead of the regional carrying capacity of environment in 5 to 10 years.
After another inspection of environmental assessment, some enterprises meet the
standards as an “area under strict supervision”, but others are eliminated
during this process. This also brings concerns to the following process
regarding the identification of such areas.
For more information
about China’s chemical market, please have a look at our resources at Chemicals.