On 28 July, 2017, the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China released the Stationary Pollution Source Directory for Pollutant Discharge Licensing (2017), announcing that the discharge licences will be first issued to 15 industries, including chemicals, active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing, pesticides and nitrogenous fertilisers within 2017. Yet, the deadline for bio-chemical and microbial pesticide production will be extended to 2020.

On 25 Dec., 2016, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed the China Environmental Protection Tax Law, which is about to be executed from 1 Jan., 2018 onwards. By then, the charging system for pollution discharge that has been implemented for around 30 years will exit from the historic stage. China’s tax revenue will be raised a lot after the environmental protection tax (predicted to reach USD7.2 billion each year) is collected.

On 5 May, 2016, Jiangsu Environmental Protection Department (the Department) suspended the approval of two chemical parks, namely Lingang Industrial Area in Guanyun County and Jiangsu Lianyungang Chemical Industrial Park in Guannan County in consideration of the serious environmental protection issue. During the six months of suspension, the province, city and county level environmental protection departments will temporarily stop the project approval of the two chemical parks except for energy reduction and ecological environment protection.