Taicang of Jiangsu Province is located at the estuary of the Yangtze River, with a 38.8-km-long shoreline along the river and tens of tributaries. As a result, the quality of its water environment is particularly important. With the rapid urbanization, there is an urgent need to move faster in upgrading and renovating local sewage pipe networks with old and dilapidated pipes that were mixed or misconnected. In 2022, China Development Bank (CDB) Suzhou Branch signed a memorandum of cooperation with the local government, granting a credit of 2.65 billion yuan in December, and it planned to take the lead in setting up a syndicated loan of 5.3 billion yuan to support Taicang in its county-wide campaign for better-quality and more-efficient sewage treatment during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period. As a benchmark project, it will comprehensively improve the sewage collection efficiency and drainage quality of the city by simultaneously renovating sewage plants and the supporting collection pipe network and the facilities for separating rainwater from sewage.
“How many steps must be gone through for a bucket of garbage to be converted into electricity?” The waste-to-energy plant in Linxia, Gansu Province, which combusts household garbage to produce electricity, will give an answer. Linxia, known as Hezhou in ancient times, is one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization and an important ecological barrier and source of water for the Yellow River. In recent years, due to the growth of the local population, problems gradually emerged in waste reduction and conversion of waste into resources CDB financed the construction of Linxia’s waste-to-energy plant in 2021. Upon completion, the project can treat nearly 300,000 tons of garbage in an innocuous way each year, generating about 73.3 million kWh of networked electricity and driving the green and sustainable development of the local economy, society, and environment.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, under the guidance of XI Jinping’s idea of ecological civilization, green finance has been booming in China with its market scale and international influence growing, effectively promoting China’s ecological civilization. As a development finance institution (DFI) supporting the national strategies, CDB have carefully implemented the decisions and instructions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, focused on its development finance mandate, and propelled the green and low-carbon economic and social development for peaking carbon dioxide emissions and achieving carbon neutrality. From 2021 onward, it started from tackling waste and sewage treatment of counties (districts) in promoting rural revitalization and supporting green development as a DFI. It rolled out the special financing scheme “RMB100 billion loans for 100 counties” to help solve serious ecological pollution in small- and medium-sized cities, counties, and rural areas, and support the battle of pollution prevention and treatment. In 2022, CDB issued 87.7 billion yuan of loans for garbage and sewage treatment to 442 counties (districts) in total to bring bluer skies, greener mountains, and more lucid waters to the vast urban and rural areas.
—Planning comes first and joint efforts are encouraged. CDB give full play to the advantages of development finance, coordinate resources to promote the development of market players, innovate market-based financing models, and gradually turn bottleneck areas into market-based and sustainable ones. This year, CDB has deepened cooperation with relevant ministries and commissions. It jointly released notifications and documents with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development for the establishment of a coordination mechanism to spur the effective implementation of key projects. It also cooperated with the Department of Resource Conversation and Environmental Protection of the National Development and Reform Commission in advancing research of urban environmental infrastructure construction and planning, fully bringing out the role of planning.
—Efforts are focused on shoring up weak spots and breakthroughs in bottlenecks. The treatment of garbage and sewage seems to be a “trivial matter” in urban and rural development, but it is a matter troubling the people and a major issue concerning the national economy and people’s livelihood. It is in alignment with the construction and operation characteristics of garbage and sewage treatment projects to provide medium- and long-term financial support for priority areas and weak spots of national strategies with development finance. For a long time, CDB has adhered to the principle of letting the people enjoy environmental benefits and creating a pleasant eco-environment for them and flexibly leveraged development finance resources with a deep understanding of its essence. It has taken the initiative and adopted a proactive strategy to support green development with uninterrupted financial support.
—Effect is produced early on with deep involvement in the frontline. Garbage and sewage treatment requires systematic, complicated, and professional efforts. In order to implement the special financing scheme “RMB100 billion loans for 100 counties” in a more pragmatic and efficient way, CDB selected and dispatched backbone members and specialists to governmental agencies at the primary level and strengthened communication and collaboration with local governments to let them know more about the characteristics of development finance. It looked into actual situations through multiple channels at different levels and incubated high-quality projects. In this way, the “RMB100 billion loans for 100 counties” brand has seen great popularity among the local governments.
According to an officer of CDB, in the future, CDB will continue to give full play to the role of development finance by coordinating resources from all parties and provide targeted support for the garbage and sewage treatment at the county (district) level. It will make unremitting efforts and take practical measures to provide higher-quality and more efficient financial services for green development, helping to boost environmental infrastructure construction and promoting the building of a modernized China featuring harmony between humanity and nature.
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