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BEIJING: Beijing achieved its annual target of low pollution days one month early due in part to Olympics measures, but repeating the success next year will be a big challenge, state media said Monday.
China's capital on Sunday experienced its 256th so-called "blue sky day", when air pollution falls below 100 on the local index, the state-run China Daily reported, quoting the municipal environmental protection bureau.
This was due in part to two months of strict pollution controls for the Beijing Olympics in August, such as restricting vehicle traffic and shutting down factories.
The measures, as well as long-term policies taken since 1998, saw Beijing reduce pollution by over 60 per cent during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the report quoted Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the bureau, as saying.
Du warned that achieving a similar target in 2009 would be a "big challenge" but promised that authorities would continue to fight air pollution, according to the China Daily.
Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, welcomed news of the number of "blue sky" days this year, although it pointed out that Beijing's air quality standards were still far short of those of the World Health Organisation.
"But through the Olympics, Beijing showed it could do quite a lot to improve air quality, and it is about time it moved forward to catch up," Greenpeace China chief media officer Wang Xiaojun said.
Beijing, one of the most polluted cities in the world, has invested more than US$15 billion to improve air quality since 1998, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The number of blue sky days this year is a record, up from 100 when the measuring system was introduced in 1999.
As part of efforts to further improve air quality, new measures from January will see more coal-burning industries moved out of the city and a ban on heavy polluting cars, the China Daily said.
Beijing has also kept part of its Olympics car restrictions, with 70 per cent of government vehicles, and all corporate and private cars, taking turns to stay off the roads one day during the working week.
But Wang warned this was not enough to improve the city's air quality.
"For next year, to only work on cars doesn't really do much to clear Beijing's air, and more needs to be done with the industries not just in the city, but in neighbouring provinces," he said.
- AFP/yb
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