In a bid to normalize the investment activities of the lead and zinc industries, China will take a string of measures to boost the structural upgrading of the two sectors, said Jia Yinsong, vice director of the Economic Operation Department of the National Development and Reform Commission.

   Main measures include: to impose stricter requirements on investment in lead and zinc sectors and increase the industrial access threshold; to publicize the list of qualified lead and zinc productive enterprises regularly and make a dynamic management of them; to strengthen the coordination between industry policy and policies of land, credit and loans, environmental protection, and safety; to strictly control the launching of new lead and zinc projects; to further adjust industrial structure and eliminate legging production capacity; give more support to the prospecting and overseas exploration of lead and zinc mineral resources ; and to strengthen environmental protection and coordinated development.

   The industry regulator must restrict blind expansion of the lead and zinc smelting capacity so as to keep the supply and demand of the sectors basically balanced and make them develop in an orderly way, said Jia.

   According to Jia, after eliminating all backward production capacity in 2010, China's annual production capacity of refined lead will be controlled within four million tons, and that of zinc, within five million tons.

   Meanwhile, China will give an energetic support to developing reclaimed lead and zinc, making the reclaimed resources account for 30 percent of the total consumption by 2010.