Green GDP plan stays on back-burner
Beijing has no plans to resume a stalled attempt to calculate the devastating ecological cost of the country's sizzling economic growth, despite President Hu Jintao lavishing attention yesterday on the need for more balanced and environmentally friendly development.
According to Pan Yue , deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration and a delegate to the Communist Party congress, the much-anticipated green GDP project shelved three months ago, would not be resurrected anytime soon.
Asked about the plan to calculate a 'green gross domestic product' that factors in the economic consequences of environmental damage, Mr Pan said that the project's delay had been Sepa's biggest headache. 'I have not heard any new developments about the project although Sepa has very much looked forward to seeing an end to the deadlock,' he said.
The project was aimed at providing a true picture of the country's degradation by putting an environmental price tag on economic success. It has been shelved indefinitely in the lead-up to the party congress due to fierce opposition from development-minded local authorities and bureaucratic wrangling.
Mr Hu did not mention a word on the project which, mainland analysts say, apparently fell out of favour with a leadership preoccupied with an intense power struggle and personnel reshuffles. They expressed disappointment in Mr Hu's failure to give adequate priority to the country's environmental problems.
But Mr Pan said he was happy to see a new slogan in Mr Hu's report promoting a conservation culture, which stressed the importance of efficient use of resources and recycling in the economy.
'It is a step forward,' he said, adding Sepa was working with other central government ministries to study how to introduce resource and pollution taxes. 'It's likely that I will make an announcement of the new taxation policies in a month or two.'
