Xie Zhenhua, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), made a speech at a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council.

Some 7,000 polluting firms will be closed if they fail to meet the official pollutant discharge requirements by the end of this year, China's top environmental authority warned in Beijing on Monday.

The Chinese government decided in 1996 that all polluting firms must meet pollutant discharge standards by the end of 2000 in order to halt the worsening environmental deterioration.

Xie said that as of the end of April, 85 percent of the polluting industrial firms monitored by the central government had met the requirements.

But more than 7,300 small and medium-sized plants and 491 large factories have taken no measures to control their waste discharge.

China has closed over 65,000 polluting firms, mostly small ones, over the past three years to protect the environment and save natural resources. Replacing outdated technology and adding new equipment are strategies China has encouraged large firms to adopt.

SEPA will work with legislative organs to keep a close watch on the polluting firms, the director added.

According to the statistics, the total area of farmland was reduced by 437,000 hectares because of the government adopted the strategy of returning farmland back to forests and pastures. In the next two-three decades, the total vegetation in China will be doubled.

The unleaded oil application has reached more than 70%. In talking about the western China development program, Mr. Xie emphasizes that western part of China is ecologically fragile and thus absolute should not take the traditional development pattern of pollution first...