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It will also invite public dissatisfaction from local people. If you have a look at Netizen comments following relevant online reports, you'll understand how furious many Hebei people are about such reckless relocation.
The capital city is planning to move hundreds of enterprises this year to neighboring places in Hebei.
A chemical firm, which is heavily resource-consuming and pollutanting, started moving its equipment and employees to Handan city of Hebei this week and more enterprises are expected to follow suit.
According to media reports, the firm will be restructured into a pharmaceutical company after it moves to Handan. New equipment would be used and environmentally friendly technologies would be adopted so that it can make use of the otherwise pollutant end gases — a byproduct of local iron and steel making — to produce bicarbonate, a crude drug.
The new way of manufacturing can markedly reduce emissions of pollutants and consumption of water and electricity in both Beijing and Hebei, according to the reports.
It remains unclear, however, how many of the Beijing firms ready to move to Hebei are heavily polluting and whether they can undergo the same sort of technological transformation as the cited chemical firm.
No doubt, there would be no easy and quick fix to the relocation issue. For Beijing, it must mend its pace in moving its enterprises to Hebei. Before doing that, it must invest heavily in the technological upgrade of those enterprises so that their emissions of pollutants could be reduced to reasonable levels.
Those that are not able to conduct necessary technological upgrading should be gradually closed instead of being moved to other places. The municipal government can provide funds to subsidize the closure.
It will be time-consuming and costly to make such a change. But it will prove the best solution that caters to the long-term interest of both sides and produces the least social repercussions.
Policymaking should be oriented to long-term achievements apart from short-term considerations. It is something easier said than done. But China has paid a high price in its past development thanks to its lop-sided development strategies. It cannot afford to repeat past mistakes.
