Status Quo and Policies of Chemical Industrial Parks in Hubei Province

[Status Quo]

In Hubei province, there are 58 chemical parks with petrochemical and chemical industries as the leading industries, mainly distributed in Wuhan, Yichang, Xiangyang, Jingmen, Huanggang, Qianjiang, and Xiantao. Since last December, six cities have published the list of qualified chemical industry parks, including 1 in Wuhan, 4 in Huanggang, 3 in Xiantao, 2 in Qianjiang and 3 in Xiangyang.

Take Yichang as an example. The chemical industry along the Yangtze river in Yichang was one of the pillars of the city’s industry. However, since 2016, 52 chemical enterprises in the city have been closed, renovated, relocated or transferred. In 2019, another 40 will be transferred. In the process of eliminating chemical enterprises near the river bank, Yichang carries out the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, and actively solves the debt risk problem in the process.

According to Guo Kangxin, Director of the Development and Reform Commission of Yichang, the city will renovate 12 chemical industry parks in different categories. In 2018, the city set up 1 billion yuan of guiding funds and 500 million yuan of special funds for relocation to the parks, and implement a three-year action plan of 240 billion yuan for industrial technological transformation, guiding and supporting chemical enterprises to accelerate their transformation to green, centralized, circular, refined and high-end industries.

[Policies]

Hubei local government introduced strict policies, prohibiting the construction of chemical projects and heavy chemical industrial parks within 1 km of the Yangtze River, and prohibiting the construction of chemical projects outside the parks within 15 km of the river, and strictly controlling the new production capacity of such industries as urea, ammonium phosphate, calcium carbide, caustic soda, polyvinyl chloride, soda soda, and yellow phosphorus.