Beijing people enjoyed 229 days of clean air last year, as the city takes more stringent measures to improve the environment.

To make the air cleaner, the capital will move polluting factories belonging to the Shougang Group, China's fourth largest steel maker, to neighbouring Hebei Province by 2010. Despite the heavy costs involved - perhaps 50 billion yuan (US$6 billion) - the move deserves applause from local people.

Moreover, it has national implications as the whole country is fighting hard to deal with pollution.

The issue of environmental protection was among the most heated topics discussed by the country's policy-makers and advisors at the just-concluded national legislative and advisory sessions.

Those debates reflect public concern.

In many countries, developed or developing, economic growth and environmental pollution seem inseparable.

Developed economies once used to suffer from heavy industrial pollution themselves. What is happening now in many developing countries shows they are repeating the mistakes of their rich brothers.

Rushing to achieve the paramount goal of economic prosperity, many developing countries, including China, have sadly built their economic prosperity on environmental degradation.

In 1995, losses incurred by environmental pollution in China were valued at 187.5 billion yuan (US$22.6 billion), accounting for 3.2 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) that year, according to a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Exact statistics today are not available. But both personal experiences and other statistics show the situation is no less, if not more, severe than 10 years ago.

In Beijing, the sand storms that hit the city in spring have forced many people to wear gauze masks when they are out.

Official sources reveal that about one-third of the urban population breathe seriously polluted air; only half of the country's 149 million tons of urban refuse every year is decontaminated; and merely 32 percent of the 11 million tons of dangerous solid waste China produces every year is subject to proper treatment.

The costs of cleaning up a polluted environment can be enormous.

In Shougang's case, the damage its polluting plants have caused to human health and the environment may have already exceeded the relocation costs.

While the move demonstrates the resolution of the authorities to clean the air, Shougang's case causes us to reflect on the serious consequence of an "economy first" policy.

The one-sided emphasis on economic growth is now backfiring.

It is not true to say China has taken little heed of environmental protection. In January, the State Environmental Protection Administration suspended several multi-billion-dollar power projects for their failure to undergo environmental impact assessment procedures. The halting could cost millions of dollars.

Official statistics show investment in pollution control accounted for 1.39 percent of China's GDP last year.

The central government has also pledged to build a harmonious society, a conceptual framework that includes the idea of balance between humans and nature.

We hope that with renewed efforts to control pollution and protect our common environment, more people in other polluted corners of the country can share the joy of Beijingers and breathe cleaner air.

(China Daily March 18, 2005)