Standardizing the development of chemical industry parks along the Yangtze River

Since 2016, Yichang City of Hubei Province has been working hard to control chemical enterprises along the Yangtze River and protect China's "mother river". At present, the government's efforts over the past three years have paid off. After major reforms in Yichang's pillar industries, the urban economy has begun to recover, and the ecology of the Yangtze River is also improving.

By 2020, the municipal government plans to renovate 134 chemical enterprises within a kilometer of the Yangtze River by four ways: closure, transformation, relocation and transfer. At present, 52 chemical enterprises have been shut down, transformed, relocated or transferred to production. In 2019, 40 chemical enterprises will continue to be transferred. The Yichang Municipal Government recently announced that in the first half of this year, the city's GDP exceeded 207.75 billion yuan, ranking second in the province, an increase of 8.2% over the first half of last year. Over the same period, China's GDP growth rate was 6.3%.

The municipal government has set up a subsidy fund of RMB 500 million, which will help chemical enterprises relocate to new industrial parks from 2018 to 2020, and optimize the industrial structure. In April of last year, General Secretary Xi Jinping visited Yichang to inspect the transformation and industrial upgrading of chemical enterprises in the city, as well as the environmental restoration and protection of the Yangtze River. Since 2016, Hubei Xingfa Chemical Group Co., Ltd. has closed about one-third of its capacity and four chemical wastewater drainage pipelines near the Yangtze River. The demolition area of the whole group is 53.3 hectares, and the value of demolition assets is 1.2 billion yuan. The newly built chemical park in Yichang is far from the Yangtze River. Group invested 2 billion yuan to carry out enterprise transformation and upgrading. The company plans to become a company focusing on new materials and fine chemicals within three to five years, taking the road of high-end and green development.

"With the rapid development of the world chemical industry, enterprise relocation has become an opportunity for enterprise transformation and upgrading, including our equipment." Chen Xiaoqing, assistant general manager of Xingfa Group, said.

He said: "After the installation of new equipment, the area of our chemical industry park is only 40% of the original, but the emissions of waste gas, waste water and waste residue have been reduced by half, and the output value has increased substantially." Li Guozhang, chairman of the group, said that sales revenue increased by 6.68% last year compared with 2017, reaching 37.9 billion yuan. Hubei Sanning Chemical Co., Ltd. has closed one of its chemical plants. Last year, the company began building its 10 billion yuan ethylene glycol project, which will be put into operation early next year. Ethylene glycol is an organic compound, which is the raw material for the manufacture of plastics, rubber and polyester fibers. Relevant personnel of Sanning Chemical Co., Ltd.

In order to do a good job in upgrading and transformation, they visited other factories and learned lessons from them. "This project will achieve structural optimization, substantially increase production and reduce the emission of"three wastes". Advanced smart devices mean fewer workers are needed on the production line, "the worker said. The staff member said their project was aimed at producing ethylene glycol from coal, "which is conducive to environmental protection and sustainable development because it saves oil use and China has more coal resources than oil."