Timeline

HOU LIQIANG

In October 2020, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council issued an outline document for the environmental protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin, vowing to create a healthy and stable ecosystem in the basin by 2035. The document will shape the country's ecological conservation and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin through to 2030 and beyond.

In March 2021, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment launched a campaign to enhance the management of sewage drainage exits, vowing to locate all of the exits that empty into the Yellow River and its major tributaries within two years.

In November 2021, the CPC Central Committee and State Council released a guideline to ramp up pollution control and make environmental protection in the Yellow River Basin a key national campaign.

In December 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with four central government bodies, unveiled an action plan to conserve and efficiently utilize water resources in the Yellow River Basin, pledging by 2025 to decrease water consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP in the basin by 16 percent from its 2020 level.

In December 2021, a draft law on protecting the Yellow River was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, for a first reading.

In February 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced the extension of an annual three-month moratorium introduced on the Yellow River in 2018. It said, from April 1 to the end of 2025, fishing will be banned outright in the river's source region and along key water bodies in its upper reaches. In other sections of the river, the moratorium will be extended by one month.

In August 2022, the Ministry of Finance published a plan to increase financial and tax support for environmental conservation and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. The ministry pledged to mobilize loans from international financial institutions and foreign governments to support the region's environmental remediation, high-quality agricultural development and desertification control.

In January 2022, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development made public an action plan on urban-rural development in the Yellow River Basin. According to the document, all new buildings in the basin will be constructed in accordance with national standards for green buildings by 2025.

In June 2022, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with three central government bodies, released an environmental protection plan for the Yellow River Basin. It said the country will work to achieve comprehensive environmental improvement in the area by 2035.

In September 2022, 12 central government bodies, including the ministries of ecology and environment, and water resources, published an action plan to expand environmental governance in the Yellow River Basin. At least 90 percent of black and odorous water bodies in urban areas of county-level cities in the basin are due to be eliminated by 2025, according to the plan.