Shanghai has established a new "Three-year Environmental Protection Plan" to reach the goal of making the city cleaner and better by 2005, vice mayor Han Zheng said yesterday at the seminar on environmental protection and urban construction.

Han Zheng, vice mayor and vice secretary of the Shanghai Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), outlined the general goals and objectives of the new plan yesterday. He also described what the city would be like by the end of 2005 when the three-year plan is complete.

Fu Wenjuan, the vice minister of the Ministry of Construction, attended yesterday's seminar and spoke highly of the recent environmental improvements in the city. She called on the city to reach higher goals and improve its treatment of all kinds of pollution.

High-ranking officers with the State Environmental Protection Administration who are supervising or related to the program were also present.

In 2000, the idea of a three-year environmental protection program was put forward. It focused on the five environmental issues that city dwellers care about most: water pollution in the Suzhou Creek, heavy overall air pollution, excessive solid waste, especially industrial and chemical waste, lack of greenbelts and serious pollution in some industrial zones.

The idea was soon acted upon. All the 110 detailed projects in the program were implemented and some of them were even completely finished at the start of this year.

The second plan adds one additional issue to those set out in the first plan, namely the treatment and protection of the ecosystem in rural Shanghai, bringing the total to six for the following three years.

"The first plan has borne fruit," vice mayor Han said, "It laid a solid ground for further development."

The second plan of the program and possible following plans are all intended to meet one goal: to improve the city's image, making Shanghai a clean, modern metropolis to welcome guests to the World Expo in 2008.


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