Chinese Capital Reports Economic Losses Caused By Environmental Pollution

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

["Beijing Reports Economic Losses Caused by Environmental Pollution" - Xinhua headline]

Beijing, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) – Environmental pollution has cost China’s capital Beijing over 11.6bn yuan (about 1.5bn US dollars) in economic losses in 2004, amounting to 1.92 per cent of the city’s GDP, according to a government report.

“Air pollution was a major cause for the losses, accounting for more than 81 per cent of the total loss,” said Du Shaozhong, deputy director and spokesman of the Beijing environment protection bureau.

It’s the first time Beijing has issued a report of its “green GDP”, which is calculated by subtracting economic losses incurred by pollution from the GDP.

“The calculation formula is still not complete, as it did not include pollution caused by noise and radioactive substances,” said Yu Xiuqin, deputy director of the municipal Bureau of Statistics, adding that they will improve the calculation method by taking all environment-related factors into account.

Beijing is among the first batch of cities to pilot the Green GDP calculation, after the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) announced the national figure in September last year.

According to SEPA statistics, environmental pollution caused China 511.8bn yuan (about 64bn US dollars) in economic losses in 2004, which amounted to 3.05 per cent of national GDP that year.

Since 1998, Beijing has invested over 119.2bn yuan (about 15.3bn US dollars) in environmental protection.

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