Inspections lead to curbs on air pollution

An inspection campaign carried out in 14 major cities last year has led to considerable progress in controlling air pollution, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Thursday.

A team from the ministry inspected the cities, most of which are in the north of the country, between April and August. As a result, local governments are putting a greater emphasis on curbing pollution and have taken a number of measures to tackle the problem, Liu Changgen, the head of the team, said.

The team recently visited the cities again and found that they had closed or upgraded a number of enterprises that were discharging pollutants at levels that breached regulations.

The environmental authorities of some of the cities have hired more law-enforcement officer and introduced new environmental monitoring facilities to improve supervision, Liu said.

However, the latest inspections showed that some problems remain. They include a lack of measures to deal with pollution caused by the burning of coal, and the fact that some enterprises continue to breach the regulations covering the discharge of pollutants.