A total of 5,396 vehicles were issued with green labels while 1,173 were given yellow ones based on their exhaust emission levels in Shenzhen on Tuesday, the first day the city began issuing compulsory labels to show vehicles' exhaust emissions.

Green labels are for vehicles using gasoline meeting the Euro I standard and others using diesel meeting the Euro II standard. Vehicles failing to meet the standards will be given a yellow label.

Vehicle owners can obtain labels from the seven vehicle inspection stations located throughout the city.

Shenzhen is the second city after Beijing to issue exhaust emission labels.

“The purpose of issuing the labels is to strengthen our inspection of vehicles with yellow labels,” said Lu, deputy chief of the issuance center. He said vehicles with yellow labels would be subject to an inspection every six months, while vehicles with green labels would be inspected once a year.

Lu said areas and driving hours would be limited for vehicles with yellow labels since auto exhaust emissions mainly came from yellow-tagged vehicles.

“We’ll keep yellow-labeled vehicles out of busy sections and roads to reduce pollution,” he said.

More frequent inspections for these vehicles would make sure their exhaust emissions were kept under control.

Each vehicle owner is obliged to attach the label to the upper right corner of the vehicle’s windscreen.

All vehicle owners are expected to be issued with the labels by the end of the year.

To learn what color applies to a particular vehicle, owners can log onto www.szvecc.org.cn, which gives the relevant information according to the manufacturing date and model of the vehicle.

Discussing the possibility of some people using false green labels, Lu said the center had a database containing all the information on a vehicle.

“You can make a fake green tag, but you can never change the database information,” he said.

People using false labels could be heavily penalized, he said.

Shenzhen’s first regulation governing auto exhaust emissions took effect June 1. Any violation would be subject to a fine of up to 1,000 yuan (US$120).

Local authorities also urged auto retailers to stop selling automobiles that fail to meet Euro II norms and asked bus line operators to run a thorough check of their vehicles.

(Shenzhen Daily August 11, 2004)