Three companies in Fujian province, including one funded by a Taiwan enterprise, recently announced that they will spend 2.6 billion yuan to jointly develop a renewable energy industrial park in Pingtan.
Local news portal ptnet.cn sat down with Chen Zhengzhi, board chairman of the Fujian Transys environmental Industrial Park Co. Ltd for an exclusive interview in which the Taiwan entrepreneur explained why he is optimistic about the future of renewable energy in Pingtan.
Q: Why do you decide to invest in Pingtan?
A: I?ve been watching Pingtan for quite a long time, and I am familiar with its development on the Internet. Last year Pingtan was approved as part of the Fujian Pilot Free Trade Zone with a number of preferential policies. That was the time that I decided to make the first move.
Pingtan aims to become an international tourist destination, which requires good environmental conditions. Renewable energy fits in right in this area as it provides solution to urban pollution and promotes resource reuse. The project will benefit enterprises, the government and the public. So we think it is a perfect timing.
Q; Most people tend to equate renewable resources with trash recycling. Can you tell us what exactly it is about?
A: I?ve been running my company engaged in utilization of renewable resources in Zhangzhou city for 15 years. It can be said that all sorts of things abandoned by people in their daily life are renewable resources. For instance, waste plastics can be remolded into new plastic products and environmental furniture; rocks and bricks from dismantled houses that can be smashed and used as raw materials for concrete. There is a saying in the industry: limited resources with unlimited recycling.
Q: In what way can renewable recourses contribute to urban development?
A: It can protect raw resources from over exploitation. Now one criteria for a developed city is its utilization of renewable resources. So Pingtan, as it plans to build a green city, can promote the concept of a recycling economy where renewable resources enterprises collect and sort out waste and turn it into semi-finished products.
Q: Can renewable resources enterprises boost the industry chain of a city?
A: I think renewable resource companies can do more than recycle garbage. For example, Pingtan can use the free trade zone as a platform to build a cross-Straits base for processing renewable resources. Furthermore, it can integrate renewable resources from home and abroad and turn them into semi-finished products and export them to other regions. By doing this, a logistics network will be formed with new enterprises set up engaged in waste processing and supply of raw materials. We can see that Taiwan has been doing well in this area for over that last five decades and the trade of renewable resources has become an international industry. So I think it can also become part of the industrial chain in Pingtan.
