(Promulgated by the General Office of the State Council on September 12, 1998, and effective as of September 12, 1998 )

Since the promulgation of the Law on the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution of the People's Republic of China, certain effectiveness has been achieved in the work of the prevention and control of air pollution in China. However along with the increase of vehicles, the motor leaded fuel causes more and more air pollution, which does serious harm to human health especially child health. The State Council decided to stop producing, selling and using the motor leaded fuel in the allotted time to realize that motor unleaded fuel will be used in the whole country. It is approved by the State Council hereby to give notice on related problems as follows:

1. From the beginning of January 1, 2000, all refineries producing leaded fuel in the whole country must produce unleaded motor fuel instead of motor leaded fuel without exception. Motor unleaded fuel refers to that of grade 90 and above with less than 0.013 gram of lead per liter. During the production of unleaded fuel, the content of other harmful materials in the unleaded fuel should be also controlled, the detailed standards on the control of harmful materials will be formulated by the State Environmental Protection Administration jointly with the State Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau. They will be promulgated before July 1, 1999 and effective as of January 1, 2000.

2. From the beginning of July 1, 1999, all filling stations must sell motor unleaded fuel instead of leaded fuel without exception in each municipality directly under the Central Government, the capital of each province, the cities in each special economic zone, the open cities along the coast and key tourist cities. From the beginning of July 1, 2000, all filling stations must sell motor unleaded fuel instead of leaded fuel without exception in the whole country.

3. From the beginning of July 1, 2000, all vehicles must use unleaded fuel instead of leaded fuel without exception in the whole country.

4. From the date when the notice is dispatched, each refinery  should increase its production capacity of unleaded fuel and decrease the capacity of leaded fuel step by step and totally stop producing motor leaded fuel within the fixed time. The components of fuel should be rationally adjusted; the transformation, extension and new construction of production facilities producing fuel with antiknock component should be arranged. The department in charge in the gasoline industry should strengthen its guidance and supervision of the refineries to ensure various measures for producing unleaded fuel to be implemented.

5. From the beginning of January 1, 2000, all fuel vehicles produced by automobile factories must be suitable to unleaded fuel. The electric injection apparatus should be adopted and the exhaust staticisor should be installed in newly produced buses. From the date when this notice is dispatched, necessary transformation should be made by automobile factories for all vehicles which are not suitable to unleaded fuel (involving in factory and ex-factory ones).Clean energy resources, such as natural gas, electricity, etc. should be adopted progressively by motorbuses. The scrapping and replacement of active vehicles must be carried out in accordance with the related stipulations.

6. The State Petroleum and Chemical Industry Bureau should organize China National Petroleum and Chemical Industry Corporation and China National Petroleum Corporation to dovetail production, transportation and marketing of unleaded fuel based on the arrangement by the State Development Planning Commission for the equilibrium of total supply and demand for finished fuel in the whole country. The transportation, storage and marketing management should be further normalized in the fuel marketing system to guarantee the quality of fuel supply. During the transient period from leaded fuel to unleaded fuel, different grades of fuel coexist, leaded fuel and unleaded fuel should be separately transported and stored, and rational marketing points should be set up to perfect a marketing network in order to provide more convenient filling conditions for users.

7. From the beginning of January 1, 1999, in order to guarantee to realize the targets of eliminating motor leaded fuel, its consumption tax rate will be raised, its price will be adjusted to make it not lower than the price of unleaded fuel. The detailed methods for tax rate adjustment will be worked out by the Ministry of Finance jointly with the State Taxation Administration; the detailed methods for price adjustment will be formulated by the State Development Planning Commission jointly with the departments concerned.

8. The Decision On Environmental Protection Problems of the State Council (No. 31, Guofa [1996] should be continuously implemented, the refineries with local methods should be banned or closed, the responsibilities of the chief leaders of the people's governments in the related localities and the persons in charge of related refineries should be investigated and affixed for those unclosed or unstopped refineries in the allotted time.

9. Stopping producing, selling and using motor leaded fuel to realize the utilization of unleaded fuel is an important industrial policy adapting the requirements of environmental protection, which covers a lot of aspects and has relatively great influences. The people's governments of each province, autonomous region, municipality directly under the State Council and the related departments of the State Council must attach great importance to the work, each performs its own functions and they should hand in glove with each other to do a good job of the implementation of related policies and measures. The supervision and inspection of refineries and fuel markets must be strengthened by the environmental protection departments at each level jointly with the administrations of industry and commerce, the quality and technical supervision departments, etc. Those violating the stipulations in the notice should be investigated and treated in accordance with the laws and regulations.