Beijing did not move air quality monitoring stations in order to report better statistics during its preparation for the Olympic Games, a Beijing environment official said on Wednesday.

Answering a question whether Beijing shifted some monitoring stations from heavy-traffic areas to less polluted places, Du Shaozhong, spokesperson from Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said all the locations of the monitoring stations can be found on the Bureau's official website.

"We did everything in accordance to relative national regulations, monitoring four types of major pollutant. We opened all the monitoring statistics to the general public on our website where you can find station locations and statistics," said Du.

"So there is no such thing we crossed out some stations in heavy-traffic areas," he said.

"We are developing our monitoring system step by step with more stations are being set up," he added.

Between 1998 and 2007, the amount of sulphur dioxide in the capital's air was down 60.8 percent, while carbon monoxide was cut 39.4 percent. Nitrogen dioxide was reduced 10.8 percent and particles were down 17.8 percent, according to Du.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2008)