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Local governments required to make green procurement

By Si Tingting (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-14 08:06

The State Council on Monday asked local governments to buy more energy-efficient products, reflecting the country's determination to make its economic growth cleaner.

China will exert tougher rules to enforce the compulsory procurement of energy-saving products and give priority to eco-friendly products in future public purchase, said a State Council order published on the central government's website yesterday.

In addition, the State Council insists on the strict implementation of a compulsory green procurement list, instead of a "preferential" list under the Government Purchase Law, which allowed government bodies to shop around for other products if they could justify them on cost and energy-efficiency grounds.

The compulsory list published in December 2007 named nine types of products, including air conditioners, fluorescent lamps, televisions, electric water heaters, computers, printers, computer monitors, urinals and toilet pans and water nozzles.

The Government Purchase Law took effect on Jan 1, 2003. In the five years since, official statistics show about 5.1 billion yuan was saved in government procurement costs.

"The reinforcement reveals that China is not satisfied with the implementation of the compulsory procurement list, although it proposed it a few years ago," said Wang Conghu, professor of Renmin University of China and a government procurement expert.

China's public authorities are influential consumers. In 2005, the government had an annual budget equivalent to 1.6 percent of the country's GDP, around 292.8 billion yuan, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Because of their relatively large spending power, government authorities have the capacity to trigger the supply of greener products and reduce their own environmental impact through public purchasing, said Wang.

The government should introduce more resource-efficient products in the market that consumers tend to oppose because of the higher initial costs and higher technology investment, said Wang, "but the purchase of more resource-efficient products can significantly cut costs for users in the long run, like the energy-efficient fluorescent lamps."

Besides, environmentally improved products are often of a niche category, whose increased demand will allow products to move into mainstream markets. The pull of public procurement may stimulate greater and faster technological breakthroughs leading ultimately to lower unit costs and mass production availability, he said.

"The country's requirement for strict implement of the compulsory green procurement list will encourage more suppliers to go green and have their names on the green procurement list," he said.

"China is one of the leading countries to call for government procurement to go green and the new State Council order represented the government's new thinking in pollution control," Zhang Jianyu, China program head of the US-based Environmental Defense Fund, said.

Green public procurement is different from pollution control by imposing caps on the polluter, Zhang said, adding, he was more concerned about the implementation of green procurement within the country's 4-trillion yuan stimulus package.