Pollution crackdown to hit Chinese pharmaceuticals

Want China Times, Liang Shih-huang and Staff Reporter 2013-06-11

Vitamin pills. (Photo/CFP)

China's Ministry of Environmental Protection recently joined forces with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Justice as well as four other central government agencies in launching a nationwide crackdown on pollution which will reportedly affect the country's nearly 7,000 pharmaceutical firms in the next half of this year.

China has emerged as the world's largest producer of bulk pharmaceutical chemicals, with one fifth of the global capacity but the industry has led to a series of environmental issues including the contamination of waterways with industrial waste water and producing massive amounts of industrial waste gas.

According to Ministry of Environmental Protection figures, the domestic pharmaceutical industry accounted for 6% of the total pollutant discharge in 2009, though its output only amounted to less than 3% of the country's GDP.

With the new regulations to come into force, pharmaceutical firms estimate that they will see their costs rise by at least 20% in the next half of this year due to increased outlays to control their pollution. An executive of a pharmaceutical firm said that a medium- to large-scale firm typically emits 5,000-6,000 tonnes of waste water a day, which would then go on to be treated at an expense of 15-20 yuan per tonne (US$2.45-US$3.30), amounting to 35 million yuan (US$5.7 million) a year. He added that the costs to meet the second grade national standard can reach 60 million yuan (US$9.8 million) a year.

Guo Fanli, a research fellow at China Investment Consulting, said that most of the country's pharmaceutical firms have yet to sincerely change their ways and reduce the environmental pollution from the pharmaceutical industry. It is estimated that 80% of the 7,000 domestic pharmaceutical firms are small or medium enterprises and they cannot afford to install the necessary but expensive equipment to curb pollution, Guo said.