The National Development and Reform Commission ("NDRC") and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment ("MEE") have recently issued the Circular on Further Promoting the Third-party Treatment of Environmental Pollutions in Industrial Parks (the "Circular").
The Circular includes the following key provisions: 1. overall requirement: by implementing third-party treatment of environmental pollutions (the "TPT") in industrial parks and guiding social capital to actively get involved, to build a new pay-for-performance TPT mechanism subject to government regulation and social supervision in industrial parks and to promote the "marketization, specialization and industrialization" of TPT; 2. the scope of implementation: all industrial parks in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas, the Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area; 3. four tasks, including fostering new TPT models, regulating cooperation relationships, promoting information disclosure on TPT, and exploring the implementation of TPT within a prescribed term; and 4. policy support: to offer qualified third-party providers of environmental pollution treatment and control services preferential policies, including a reduced enterprise income tax rate of 15%.