China Includes Desalination into 5th Twelfth Five-Year Plan

The Ministry of Science and Technology and National Development and Reform Commission jointly published the water desalination plan in the Twelfth Five Year scheme. The inclusion of desalination is in an attempt to boost the amount of water desalinated in China. It also aims to increase the production of desalination equipment to be made in China, as desalination plants currently rely almost exclusively on imports. An obligatory target was set to ensure that “75% of important equipment should be made in China”.

As of the end of 2011, China’s seawater desalination capacity reached 660 kilotons per day, and global investment of water desalination reached 34 billion yuan. And the figure was estimated in the plan to be 70 to 95 billion in the year 2015.
China has set a daily goal to desalinate 2200,000 to 2600,000 tons sea water, which is 3 to 4 times more than the current desalination capability. Production of related equipment is expected to reach the value of 7.5 billion to 10 billion yuan annually.

According to local media, 10,000 tons of desalination needs an investment of 60 million yuan, which means that 13.2 billion to 15.6 billion yuan will be invested daily. The plan also stated that with 5 years’ development, China will form a desalination innovation system, fostering more than 10 international competitive companies producing core equipment in the fields.

One of the most established desalination companies in China is Veolia Water, which entered the Chinese water treatment market early in 1997 and now has over 15 projects in China, mainly in Tianjin, Shanghai, Beijing, Shandong and Shaanxi.
Another is ProMinent, which started in the Chinese seawater desalination market in 2001, and has now six completed seawater desalination projects. Others include Israel Desalination Enterprises (IDE) Technologies, who entered the Chinese market in 2007 and has constructed one plant in Tianjin. Hyflux arrived in 2009 and has now set up the Tianjin Dagang Seawater Desalination Plant. Aqualyng began the construction of a plant in 2010 and now has the desalination project in Tangshan, Hebei.