The implementation of the “Ten Water Regulations” in 2015 will usher in an outbreak of water treatment industry

Since 2015, environmental protection has become A hot topic in the A stock market. Especially since March, the concept of environmental protection has continued to go up, leading the two markets up several times. On April 2, energy conservation and environmental protection concept stocks continued to strengthen, as of the close, the average plate rose nearly 5%.

Behind the soaring concept of environmental protection is the continuous release and gradual implementation of favorable environmental protection policies since the two sessions this year. According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), the "Water 10 Plan" will be introduced in the near future and will involve investment of 2 trillion yuan. The industry believes that the environmental protection industry as a strategic emerging industry in China, its future development prospects are very broad, long-term optimistic about the investment opportunities in the environmental protection industry.

Wu Wenqing, a senior figure in the industry, pointed out that 2015 is the first year of the implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law and the last year of the 12th Five-Year Plan. As various environmental indicators have been formulated and disclosed, it can be predicted that investment in environmental protection will increase, and this year the environmental protection industry will usher in an explosive period.

Water pollution cannot be ignored

Compared with the "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan", the "Water Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan", the "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan" also touches the hearts of all sectors of society

During the recent NPC and CPPCC sessions, an action plan for water pollution prevention and control, which has drawn much attention from all sectors of society, was published in a government report for the first time. The report calls for implementing an action plan for preventing and controlling water pollution, strengthening control of water pollution in rivers, lakes and seas, water sources and agricultural non-point sources, and exercising supervision over the whole process from water sources to water taps.

What cannot be ignored is that the current situation of environmental protection in China is still grim, and the water pollution is alarming.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Supervision, water pollution incidents have been high in China in the past decade, with more than 1,700 accidents occurring each year in recent years. About 140 million people in cities and towns across the country are affected by unsafe drinking water sources. According to data recently released by the Ministry of Water Resources, 11 percent of China's reservoir water sources, about 70 percent of its lake water sources and about 60 percent of its groundwater water sources are below the standard.

At the same time, with the frequent reports of "deep well drainage", "groundwater overextraction" and other problems, the groundwater environment has also aroused great concern. In the eyes of many experts, water and soil pollution are more of a concern than air pollution, which has already received enough attention, in terms of its long-term harm and difficulty in dealing with it.

During the 2015 NPC and CPPCC sessions, water pollution also became the focus of attention for NPC deputies and CPPCC members. The All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce specially submitted the Proposal on Taking Powerful Measures to Treat Direct Sewage and Effectly Alleviate Black and Odor in Rivers and Lakes, and put forward suggestions on perfecting the scientific management system.

Plan "Ten Water Projects" in Advance

At the same time, the public news from the National Environmental Monitoring Conference and Clean Government Work Conference said that in 2015, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will adjust the national surface water environment monitoring network, increase the national control monitoring sections and points, to adapt to the "water ten" provisions of the water quality evaluation and assessment requirements. Monitoring results show that the country's surface water was slightly polluted in 2014, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) said the Water Plan would be issued and implemented this year. In line with the implementation of the "Water Policy", the Ministry of Environmental Protection will improve the water environment monitoring and early warning capacity, seize the opportunity of the new environmental law and the implementation of the "Water Policy", and actively promote the unified planning and layout of the water environment quality monitoring network.

According to public data, in 2014, the Ministry of Environmental Protection carried out routine water quality monitoring in 338 prefecture-level and above cities and 2,856 county-level towns across the country, fully mastering the water quality situation and changing trends of urban and rural centralized drinking water sources.

Combined with article 10 of "water", the implementation of the environmental protection requirements, to continue to ground level above cities in China, the county town of all living in with a centralized source of drinking water surveillance, and gradually promote the township level of drinking water source water quality monitoring, a comprehensive grasp of drinking water quality status of urban and rural areas, monitoring information released in time, ensure safe drinking water for the people.

In addition, 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have set up platforms for enterprises to release information on their own monitoring results, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection began to report inspection results in July 2014. The results of the 2014 assessment of the total emission reduction monitoring system showed that 91.4 percent of enterprises' self-monitoring information was released on average across the country, and all localities met 80 percent of the assessment requirements. In accordance with the relevant provisions of the new environmental protection law, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) requires local governments to urge key enterprises to carry out their own monitoring in accordance with relevant regulations and make public their monitoring information.

The feast of water management market will begin

"Eliminate the five types of water with inferior quality by 2017, and keep the black and odorous water in urban areas below 10 percent by 2020." The priority areas are sewage treatment, drinking water safety, black and smelly water, industrial wastewater pollution and agricultural non-point source pollution, Liu Zhiquan, deputy director of the Ministry of Environmental Protection's science and technology standards department, said when introducing the targets.

It is understood that industrial and municipal sewage treatment are to implement higher discharge standards, "urban sewage treatment plant pollutant discharge standards" (GB18918-2002) will be improved as a whole, will be for the three rivers, three lakes and other key drainage areas to develop special limits for emissions. Liu Zhiquan believes that in the future, the new market space will mainly focus on the counties and villages, and the urban sewage treatment plant market will focus on the upgrading of the bidding (the upgrading of the bidding has just completed about 30%, and the first grade B will be upgraded to the first grade A).

With the improvement of pollutant discharge standards and environmental quality standards, the water environment industry, driven and guided by policies, is bound to usher in a "golden period". In this regard, Liu Zhiquan predicted that from 2015 to 2020, the growth rate of water environmental protection products and equipment will reach about 15%-20%, and the growth rate of water environmental service industry will reach about 30%-40%.

At the same time, according to the information previously disclosed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, it is expected that the Water Project will bring an investment scale of 2 trillion yuan, higher than the 1.7 trillion yuan for the atmosphere. In the opinion of industry experts, the investment of 2 trillion yuan is only a certain part of the work within a certain period and will continue to increase in the future.

Fu Tao, director of the Water Policy Research Center at Tsinghua University, said that the Water Ten Plan is more specific. Previously, some planning documents were mainly for construction projects, while the Water Ten Plan is a result-oriented document. "The introduction of the water ten, for the water market is certainly good."

, Liu Zhiquan pointed out, further improve the system of water treatment industry policy, the development trend of future sewage treatment industry is necessarily the operational mechanism of marketization of enterprises, assumed by the government in the past some change for the enterprise according to the market economic model to charge, the enterprise according to the operation of the market way to manage sewage treatment plant. In terms of formulating preferential policies for sewage treatment industry, including: preferential policies for electricity charges, improving sewage treatment fees, preferential prices for recycled water, etc.

What sectors are companies optimistic about?

It is understood that China will focus on forming a diversified investment mechanism in the future to attract social capital to invest in ecological environmental protection. How to give play to the market mechanism, mobilize the enthusiasm of enterprises, so that water enterprises can provide quality services, so as to achieve the effect of governance.

In view of this, Li Li, executive vice president of Beijing Water Holding Co., Ltd., believes that the most fundamental problem of the water industry in the past is that environmental governance needs always become a cost burden for upstream enterprises, and it is difficult for them to become profits for the recipients of environmental services. Therefore, these enterprises have no impulse to buy quality environmental services. "Now that has changed, there is a strong desire to buy environmental services. The industry is in a 'gale'. "In the past, some environmental companies could survive by fooling their customers. Now, as customers' needs change, water companies are becoming more and more profitable suppliers for upstream companies."

At the same time, Li Li said that in the future, enterprises believe that township sewage treatment, industrial wastewater treatment, membrane water, overseas water, including inland river treatment, water environment management such as the construction of water ecosystem, involving pipe network and comprehensive pipe gallery and other flooding and water business will become the focus of enterprises.

In response to the changes in the water industry, Wang Di, general manager of China Environmental Water, said that companies should return water to the nature of resources, rather than positioning themselves as water treatment companies. Thus, the content of water industry will be expanded. "Water saving, water reuse and sludge disposal are all important development directions for enterprises in the future."

In addition, the upgrading of sewage treatment facilities, the protection of water sources and the treatment of pollution sources will provide development opportunities for the industry. Guo Peng, deputy general manager of Beijing Capital, said companies will have bigger profit margins if they can provide simple, efficient and low-cost solutions for upgrading in the future. "On the one hand, sewage treatment plants can gain access to the market by minimizing the footprint, using relatively mature and applicable technologies, and controlling related costs. On the other hand, if the enterprise can do a good job in the source of sewage collection, cost control and treatment, can also gain greater profits."

(Source: Legal Daily, West China Metropolis Daily, Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference News, National Business Daily, China Environment News)