New plan for China says environmental protection to have raised priority

Tue 19 November 2013 View all news

In wide-ranging economic and social reforms unveiled in China, the ruling Communist Party says it will place greater emphasis on environmental protection compared with economic growth and will also hold local authorities directly responsible for pollution.

China says it will steer local governments away from the pursuit of economic growth at all costs and beef up their powers to punish polluters as part of a campaign to reverse the damage done by three decades of unchecked expansion.

Included in the document - which also pledges to relax its "one-child policy" and further free up its markets - the ruling party says China will draw an "ecological protection red line" that would limit the economic development of environmentally vulnerable regions.

Reuters reports that three decades of industrialization and double-digit growth in China have left the country badly polluted.

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