Ministry of Environmental Protection proposes to cancel export tax rebates for titanium dioxide and other high-grade products

The Ministry of Environmental Protection recently sent a letter to 13 economic departments, proposing to formulate targeted economic policies and regulatory policies for the relevant products, processes, and equipment under the “Environmental Protection Comprehensive Directory (2012 Edition)” (abbreviated as “New List”), and encourage enterprises to The use of environment-friendly technology, special equipment for environmental protection, and containment of the production, use, and export of “high-pollution, high-environmental risks” products (abbreviated as “double-high” products) will promote technological progress and upgrade the industrial structure. "Economic Information Daily" reporter learned that the relevant documents related to chemicals, dyes, coatings, pesticides, inorganic salts, pharmaceuticals, non-ferrous metals, coking, coking, textiles, metallurgy, mining, light industry, building materials and other 14 industries, including dichlorvos, asphalt , Monosodium glutamate, finished leather, tubular lead batteries, flat glass, berberine, antibiotics and other common products and consumer products.

According to the requirements of the State Council, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has recently formed a “Comprehensive List of Environmental Protection (2012 Edition)”; at the same time, it also proposes relevant policy measures for the new directory research and sends letters to the Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, the Central Bank, the General Administration of Customs, the General Administration of Taxation, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Insurance Regulatory Commission, and other departments, for reference when formulating and adjusting relevant policies.

Since 2007, according to the requirements of the State Council's work deployment, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has organized relevant industrial industry associations and relevant research institutions to carry out the preparation of a comprehensive directory of environmental protection.

The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Environmental Protection told reporters that the new list contained 596 items of “double high” products, 68 heavy pollution processes, 64 environmentally friendly processes, and 28 special environmental protection equipment. It contains nearly 20 "double high" products with close relationship with the total amount of pollutants controlled during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, large emissions, and large emission reduction potential; it includes "double high" related to heavy metals. More than 150 kinds of products; contains a large number of toxic and hazardous products that directly harm human health, such as pesticide products containing persistent organic pollutants, dyes containing carcinogenic aromatic amines, organotin series that endanger marine ecology, antifouling coatings, etc.; There are nearly 400 products with high environmental risk characteristics.

The responsible person explained that one of the important features of the comprehensive directory is to directly link the needs of environmental protection with national economic policies and market supervision policies.

He further said that previous comprehensive lists were published in the "Guiding Catalogue for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2011 Edition)" issued by the relevant state departments, the Catalogue of Products Repealed from Export Tax Rebates, and the Catalogue of Products banned from Processing Trade. "The National Industrial Sector Eliminate Outdated Production Process Equipment and The product guidance catalogue (2010 edition) and other policies have been used more directly and in depth. The safety supervision department and the banking supervision department have successively forwarded comprehensive lists, requesting that the comprehensive list be used as an important basis in safety supervision and credit review.

When participating in the new directory work, Ge Chazhong, director of the Comprehensive Department of the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, was interviewed by the reporter of the “Economic Information Daily”. He said that the promotion of technological upgrading and technological upgrading is an important starting point for promoting regional industrial transformation and upgrading.

The person in charge also pointed out that the preparation of a comprehensive environmental protection directory is to reflect the impact on the environment through in-depth analysis and scientific demonstration of products, processes, and equipment. Through differentiated policies, the degree of resource scarcity and ecology will be reduced. The internalization of value is the internal cost of the enterprise, and the ecological environmental responsibility of the enterprise is strengthened. At the same time, by recommending that relevant national departments adopt differentiated economic policies and market supervision policies to curb the production, consumption, and export of “double high” products, encourage enterprises to adopt environmentally friendly technologies, gradually reduce the weight of heavy pollution processes, and increase the environment. Protect special equipment investment, achieve the goal of upgrading the environmental protection technology and optimizing the economic structure.

Encourage environmental friendly technology and special equipment for environmental protection to “optimize economic growth by protecting the environment. It is the purpose and end-result of the new list.” The relevant experts of the Ministry of Environmental Protection said.

In response, the Ministry of Environmental Protection recommends that the economic departments adopt incentive policies to encourage enterprises to adopt environmentally friendly technologies with low emissions and light pollution, purchase equipment specially designed for environmental protection, and promote enterprises to accelerate technological progress and industrial upgrading. First, encourage environmentally friendly technologies, implement encouraging industrial policies, and encourage and support state-approved industrial industry access conditions; second, provide credit support for related projects that use environment-friendly technologies; and third, protect the environment. Special equipment implements tax incentives.

In response, Zhang Mingyu, vice president of the China Chemicals (7.80, -0.19, -2.38%) Pharmaceutical Industry Association, suggested that the capital requirements for process changes in pharmaceutical companies are very large. We hope that the banking system will provide credit support, and the financial and taxation authorities will provide special funds for the science and technology sector. In the "863" "985" and other major national science and technology projects to guide technological innovation, in many ways to encourage antibiotic production from the chemical method to the biological enzymatic method of this environmentally friendly process.

Cao Hongbin, deputy director of the Ministry of Science and Technology's Environmental Protection Department of the China Coking Industry Association, suggested that the state should reduce or exempt taxes and fees and provide subsidies for the comprehensive utilization of resources such as methanol gasoline and coal-based natural gas, which would be beneficial to improving the energy structure and reducing pollutant emissions.

According to the person in charge of the above-mentioned Ministry of Environmental Protection, the environmental protection department will continue to summarize the effects of the policy implementation of the comprehensive list, supplement and improve more targeted policy and measures recommendations based on the characteristics of economic policies and market supervision policies, and play a more active role in the comprehensive list.

Gecha Zhong revealed that taking titanium dioxide as an example, although it was listed by the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation in 2007 as a “remove of export tax rebates”, it also played a role in curbing exports in the short term; however, due to the rigid demand in the international market, No other alternatives could be found. The decline in export volume will lead to higher product prices, and thus the reduction in export value will be small. Coupled with the rebound in production capacity of domestic manufacturers, the inhibitory effect of medium and long-term export output value will be limited. Need to dynamically adjust to adapt to limit or prohibit the 'double high' export products new requirements." Ge Chazhong said.

Proposal to abolish export tax rebates for 53 "double-high" products According to Ge Jiazhong, in order to encourage environmental protection and contain pollution, there should be pressure on industrial policies.

For "double high" products, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has also put forward many binding policy recommendations. In particular, for the 53 “double-high” products that still enjoy the preferential policy for export tax rebates and the 64 “double-high” products that are still engaged in processing trade, they proposed to the relevant departments the proposal of canceling export tax rebates and prohibiting processing trade.

An expert on the "China's Macroeconomic Strategic Research" task group told reporters that while China's current trading system has achieved significant success, there is also a problem of low environmental efficiency, that is, the average resource consumption of China's export products (including goods and services). Stronger, although the trade is favorable, the environment is in deficit.

However, foreign trade experts told reporters that this year's export situation is very serious, the year is near, the year's foreign trade growth target of 10% may be difficult to complete, therefore, adjusting the export tax rebate rate requires a comprehensive combination of factors, select the best time.

For example, in the coking industry, asphalt products mainly adopt batch tar processing technology (heavy pollution process) and tar distillation adopts normal pressure, decompression, or atmospheric and vacuum continuous distillation process (environmentally friendly process). The former has higher emission of strong carcinogens such as asphalt smoke and benzopyrene than the former.

In the coking industry, coke produced in the coking process of coke making and coking chambers with a height less than 4.3 meters (excluding tamping coke ovens of 3.8 meters or more) is classified as a "double high" product. Due to the recent rise in coal prices and the collapse of coke prices, the profitability of cokemaking has been greatly reduced; 4.3m (excluding 4.3m) coke ovens have also been included in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology “Guidance for the elimination of backward production capacity”. The entry threshold for the above project has been raised to a stampede coke oven of 5.5 meters and above. However, Cao Hongbin said that because the 4.3-meter coke oven is still not included in the "Guided list of elimination of backward production capacity," and still accounts for 50% of total coke production, the number of coke-producing coke, and the number of coal installed are high, and emissions of dust and other pollutants remain. More.

Taking the pharmaceutical industry as an example, commonly used berberine (**berberine) mainly uses plant extraction (heavy pollution process) and chemical synthesis (environmentally friendly process). The former uses the cork bark, which consumes 80 tons of cork bark per ton of product. Usually, the “three wastes” produced by manual workshops do not control the direct discharge, and the current output still accounts for 40%.

Ge Chazhong also revealed that with the transfer of antibiotics and other raw materials to industries in the western region, if the traditional chemical method (heavy pollution process) is not improved, the impact on the local environment is relatively large.

The relevant documents obtained by the reporter show that the restrictive policy recommendations for "double high" products are also reflected in the incorporation of national industrial policies, the access conditions of relevant industries in the country, the implementation of differentiated credit policies, the inclusion of compulsory liability insurance for environmental pollution, and the strengthening of market supervision. , strict listing or re-examination and other aspects.