BEIJING - Industry specialists said they expect the sewage treatment industry to receive a total of 150 billion yuan ($21.97 billion) of new investment during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-16), according to an analysis in the Chinese-language 21st Century Economic Herald.
More than half of these funds - 77.32 billion yuan - will support the construction of sewage pipeline networks.
The remainder of the funding will be ploughed into the construction and rebuilding of sewage treatment facilities at county level and above. The majority of the new sewage plants will be small- and medium-sized, serving second-tier cities.
The whole project will cover 379 cities, or nearly 60 percent of all Chinese cities, said Chang Miao, director of the Tsinghua University environmental management and policy institute.
As the downstream industry of sewage treatment, sludge treatment will have a market value of 50 billion yuan, according to experts. But there is still a lack of general interest in investing in the sludge treatment.
Although the market scale of sludge treatment is small compared with sewage treatment, experts said it is still a crucial link in environmental protection and deserves proper financial support in the 12th Five-Year Plan.
"Local governments still have to realize the importance and urgency of sludge treatment," said Yao Kun, chief executive officer of Great Mud Science and Applied Technology Research Institute Co.
