Yellow River Delta faces huge challenges in halting pollution

The Yellow River, the cradle of Chinese civilisation, is now giving birth to what is claimed to be the country's first environmentally friendly economic development zone.

But the main priority of local governments on the north Shandong coast is still industrial development, with dozens of industrial parks already set up and more being planned in delta cities. That has led some experts to question the practicability of the environmentally friendly development plan and characterise it as just another political manoeuvre designed to extract more financial support from the central government.

The delta zone mainly covers two cities, Dongying and Binzhou, and parts of two others, Weifang and Laizhou . Four industrial bases next to ports in the four cities are designed to be at the centre of the zone and form an economic belt with hi-tech development zones, industrial parks and eco-farming pilot areas, according to the provincial government's development blueprint.

While claiming that environmental concerns will outweigh economic development, the provincial government has pulled out all stops to speed up the development of the delta and turn it into an east coast growth engine. Since 2005, the provincial government has earmarked 1.5 trillion yuan (HK1.73 trillion) for its development.

Last year, the value of the region's economic output was 475.6 billion yuan. It is expected to reach 930 billion yuan by 2015 and 1.5 trillion yuan by 2020, according to media reports.

Dongying, home to the nation's second largest oilfield, Shengli, is the engine of the delta's economy and it spent 110 billion yuan last year on developing three pillar industries - petrochemicals, petroleum equipment manufacturing and modern fishing and stockbreeding. Some analysts have pointed out that most such industries are heavy consumers of energy and highly polluting.