Xiaoyi city, in north China's Shanxi Province, will shut down all coking projects that do not meet government environmental protection policies in the next two years, city mayor Zhang Xuguang said on Tuesday.

Currently, the city has 47 coking projects, 38 of which began operation without carrying out an environmental impact assessment. Their environmental impact assessment reports have not been approved by higher authorities.

Zhang said all 38 coking projects would be closed.

Environmental protection assessments prohibited Xiaoyi city from launching new coking projects after 2000. Despite the ban, the number of projects has jumped from 8 to 47. The vast majority of these projects were built without government approval.

Part of the problem lies with the Xiaoyi city environmental protection bureau's poor supervision and management of environmental protection in the city. Not only did it not stop polluting projects which began operation without official approval, it failed even to report them.

The Shangxi Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau has now suspended the right of Xiaoyi city environmental protection bureau to approve construction projects that relate to environmental protection. It will only be able to recover its approval rights when the quality of the local environment meets the requirements set by the government.

This is the most coercive measure the Shanxi provincial environmental bureau has so far taken with regard to Xiaoyi city's approval rights.

Xiaoyi city is one of the 16 cities in Shanxi Province which appear on the State Environmental Protection Administration's (SEPA) Black List with air quality below Grade III, meaning they suffer serious to very serious air pollution.

After assessing last year's environmental conditions in 509 cities, SEPA blacklisted 43 cities with air quality below Grade III early this month.

Suspending Xiaoyi city's approval rights sends a warning signal to other cities and counties which suffer serious pollution, and demonstrates the provincial government's determination to control pollution, said an official with the provincial environmental protection bureau.

Luliang city, which administers Xiaoyi, a county-level city, currently has 165 coking projects, 132 of which began operation without official approval.

Luliang city began to do something about local coking projects on Tuesday. Some projects will be closed and others have been ordered to suspend production while improvements are carried out.

Shanxi Province, the country's largest coal supplier, has witnessed severe environmental deterioration in the past 20 years.     

According to provincial government figures, the air quality of the province's 11 major cities, including provincial capital Taiyuan, are below Grade II, a national standard indicating a clean and healthy air environment. Nine of the 11 cities have air quality below Grade III. More than 60 percent of the province's surface water cannot be used due to pollution.

According to the provincial environmental protection bureau, polluting enterprises are mainly in industrial sectors such as coal, power, metallurgy, chemistry, coking and building materials.

To improve the local environment, the provincial government has launched a project to restore "blue sky and clean water" to major cities and major areas starting this year.

The project aims to improve environmental quality by restructuring industry, promoting environment-friendly production and a recycling economy and significantly reducing the pollution emissions of industrial enterprises.

According to the provincial government, if major industrial enterprises fail to reduce pollution emissions and meet government requirements by the end of 2008, their production will be suspended or they will be closed.

The province has this year closed more than 20 generating units which fail to meet government decoking standards. Officials in charge have been ordered to improve more than 100 other generating units.

An official's track record in pollution control will become a major factor in determining his overall achievements in the future, said Liu Xiangdong, director of the provincial environmental protection bureau.

Leading officials in a locality and those in charge of environmental protection who fail to perform their duties and prove incompetent at reducing pollution emissions will be harshly punished, said Liu.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2006)