China - Tibetan Goatian moved to protect air quality

One of Tibet’s major polluters, Goatian Cement, has been moved away from the outskirts of Lhasa into a deep valley at 30km distance. The high dust levels discharged from the plant have been cited as the key reason for the move, which comes with the clampdown on pollution in the area and has seen the closure of eight cement works and various other production facilities. Xu Mingyang, vice-chairman of the Tibet autonomous regional government stresses the urgency and must to close down or move polluters in Tibet in order to defend the region’s reputation as “the only sacred land in the world”. Statistics have shown that in 2001, dust levels in Lhasa and nearby areas have fallen by 18.4Mt when compared to 1998.

However, given the region’s cement demand of 200,000t, Tibet needs sufficient cement production capacity to supply its own needs. A new line for Gaotian is developed in Doilungdeqen county with technical support from the Tianjin Cement Designing Research Institute. The planned 0.6Mta production unit has a budget investment of RNM520m and is expected to come online in October 2003.