Beijing took the lead among all the large and medium-sized cities in China to make its industrial pollutant discharge reach the state designated levels, sources from a Beijing environmental protection organizations show.

Of all the 25,000 Beijing-based industrial enterprises, more than 5,000 firms that were considered as the pollution source in the city, have so far reduced the pollutant discharge to meet levels set by the central and local governments.

Protecting the environment has always been a priority for Beijing municipal government. Over the past three years, Beijing has raised some 4.4 billion yuan to remove 53 polluting enterprises out of the downtown area and rebuild pollution- control facilities in about 790 enterprises. On-line pollution supervision was also adopted to realize a round-the-clock examination on such enterprises.

Thanks to the continuous efforts in improving the environment, Beijing's air quality for 85 percent of the days in 2000 has reached level three or a slightly polluted level, and 45 percent of the days was reported higher than level two or a fairly good level.

(Xinhua 03/21/01)