Urban environmental protection industry is a sunrise industry in the world today. Since the 1990s, countries around the world have paid more and more attention to environmental issues, vigorously promoted cleaner production technology, and the market scale of environmental protection products and services has become larger and larger. By the end of 2011, the United States had occupied 36% of the global environmental protection market share, ranking first; Europe ranked second; Japan ranked third.
Since the 1970s, after decades of development, China's environmental protection industry has begun to take shape. The rapid development of industrialization and urbanization has promoted the enhancement of environmental protection awareness of Chinese residents and the development of environmental protection industry. Especially since the "Tenth Five Year Plan", the state has stepped up efforts to control heavy pollution industries such as power, cement, steel, chemical industry and light industry, and strengthened investment in the construction of environmental protection infrastructure such as centralized disposal of urban sewage, garbage and hazardous waste, which has effectively driven the market demand for environmental protection industry. The overall scale of the industry has expanded rapidly, the field has been expanding, the structure has been gradually adjusted, and the overall level has been greatly improved, The operation quality and efficiency have been further improved. From the initial stage of "three wastes treatment", it has developed into an industrial system that includes environmental protection products, environmental services, clean products, waste recycling, cross industry, cross region, and basically complete industrial categories.
During the 11th Five Year Plan period, China's investment in environmental protection accounted for about 1.35% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the same period, of which the fiscal expenditure on environmental protection in 2010 was 242.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.4%. During the "12th Five Year Plan" period, China's investment in environmental protection will reach 3.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 121% over the investment during the "11th Five Year Plan" period. The compound growth rate of the industry in the next five years will be 15% - 20%, which will reach 7% - 8% of GDP by 2015. By 2020, environmental protection will become a pillar industry of the national economy.
In the future, China's environmental protection industrial structure will be further adjusted, and the production of resource saving products and clean products and the technology for comprehensive utilization of resources will continue to develop rapidly; The scale of the environmental service industry will gradually expand. Environmental protection investment in key areas such as urban sewage treatment, sludge treatment, desulfurization and denitration will reach 1.2 trillion yuan, boosting the output value of environmental protection industry by 1.32 trillion yuan.
On October 15, 2015, the State Council issued Several Opinions on Promoting the Reform of the Price Mechanism, proposing to improve the price policy of environmental services. We will make overall use of environmental protection tax, charge and related service price policies, increase the adjustment of economic leverage, gradually make the expenditure borne by enterprises to discharge various pollutants higher than the cost of active treatment, and improve the enthusiasm of enterprises to actively control pollution and reduce emissions. In terms of environmental protection investment, Li Qingrui, director of the Department of Regulations of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said publicly that during the "13th Five Year Plan" period, the total investment in China's environmental protection market is expected to reach 17 trillion yuan. This will bring huge investment opportunities to the environmental protection market, inject strong development impetus into the environmental protection industry, and become the growth point of a new round of economic development.
