China's environmental chief has blamed fraudulent project approval procedures and slow construction of pollution control facilities for the rise in pollutant emission in the first half of the year.

Discharge of major pollutants in 17 provinces rose over the first six months, despite the government's pledge to cut down emissions by two percent at the end of the year, said Zhou Shengxian, director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration.

The emission of sulphur dioxide had increased by 5.8 percent compared with the same period last year.

"It is clear the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection is coming to a head," Zhou said in an interview with Xinhua to reiterate the government's vows to clamp down on pollution.

"Frauds in project approval were prominent, with many projects passing their environmental assessment without fulfilling the necessary criteria," Zhou said, adding that in some counties only 30 percent of the projects had been checked for pollution control measures before getting construction licenses.

And nearly half of the firms, even though they passed proper environmental appraisals, failed to carry out pollution control measures as required during the construction process, Zhou added.

A government probe into the construction of projects with 100,000 yuan (US$12,500) of investment in the first six months showed that almost 40 percent of projects in eight provinces had violations in approval procedure concerning pollution control, Zhou said.

Official figures revealed that investment in coal mining and processing rose 45.7 percent in the first six months.

As projects have expanded rapidly, the construction of facilities to reduce emissions have lagged far behind, Zhou said, noting that almost half of the new coal processing projects this year had failed to set up desulphurization equipment.

China discharged 25.49 million tons of sulphur dioxide in 2005, making it the world's top emitter. Nearly 85 percent was industrial emission, coming mainly from a large number of coal-burning projects.

The country has promised a ten percent reduction of the total sulphur dioxide emissions by 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency August 20, 2006)