BEIJING (AFP) — China is to implement a plan to improve air quality in Beijing for this summer's Olympic Games which will see factories shut down and construction halted, the Beijing environmental bureau said on Monday.
The two-month plan will be implemented on July 20, almost three weeks ahead of the start of the Games on August 8.
Du Xiaozhong, deputy director of the city's environmental protection bureau, said Beijing also planned to ban cars from the roads during the Games.
He said the city was well on its way to meeting a pledge to guarantee good air quality for the Games.
"We are doing this to fulfil our Olympic bidding promise to offer good air quality for the Olympics," he told a press conference.
Du said that 19 heavily polluting plants in Beijing would be affected by the measures. Construction sites doing excavation or cement placement will have to cease work while those with less polluting work would be allowed to continue, he said.
The car ban will include removing roughly one half of Beijing's three million cars from the roads during the Games, officials have said.
If these contingency measures failed to work due to "adverse weather conditions," Du said that a plan-B of extra measures would be adopted, including the closure of even more factories.
A weather pattern known as 'inversion' can trap pollution over Beijing during the summer months when the air is stagnant in the absence of wind.
Beijing is one of the world's most polluted cities and some of the 10,000 athletes coming for the August 8-24 Games have expressed concerns about the health impacts of competing.
In its own assessment, the International Olympic Committee last month indicated "some risk" for athletes competing in outdoor endurance events that required more than an hour of continuous physical effort at high level.
Examples include urban road cycling, mountain biking, marathon running, marathon swimming, triathlon and road walking.
China has spent nearly 20 billion dollars since 1998 on cleaning the city's environment, including shutting down some 200 heavily polluting industries, Du said.
He said the results had produced improvements in the four main pollutants -- carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and particulate matter (PM10). However PM10, produced mostly by vehicle emissions, was still a problem.
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