China denies cheating on pollution figures

Reuters
BEIJING -- Beijing, under pressure to reassure athletes coming to the city for August's Olympics, denied manipulating pollution data on Wednesday and trumpeted the cleanest air for many years in January and February.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal last month said the Beijing authorities had closed three monitoring stations in the centre of the city and opened two more in less-polluted areas, thus bringing down the average pollution levels recorded.

"This phenomenon does not exist," Du Shaozhong, Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau spokesman, told a news conference. "We have noticed these reports and we think they are unfair."

Du said Beijing was constantly improving its air quality data gathering techniques and a breakdown of the data from each individual station was publicly available on the bureau's Web site (www.bjepb.gov.cn/air2008).

Pollution remains one of the biggest problems facing Beijing in the run-up to the Aug. 8-24 Games and China has invested some 120 billion yuan ($16.80 billion) over the last decade in environmental improvements.

Many athletes have expressed concerns about air quality in the Chinese capital and in Vancouver Wednesday International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge echoed those concerns.

Du said great progress was being made in clearing the skies of one of the world's most polluted cities.

"I must tell you a very important fact that the air quality this January and February has shown further obvious improvements on previous years," he said.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008