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A view of the Chinese capital. Photo taken 28 July 2018. REUTERS / Thomas Peter
A few years ago, Beijing was considered the most polluted city in the world, but the Chinese capital was dethroned by Dehli, and others. For a few years now, Beijing has been sparing no effort to clear the sky. But the city wants to accelerate: the municipal government has just announced the relocation of a thousand polluting factories.
From our correspondent in Shanghai , Simon Leplâtre
Hide these factories that I can not see: Beijing, the Chinese capital has decided to move its most polluting factories. If China needs heavy industry, Beijing, and its more than 21 million people, smother regularly under thick clouds of pollution. Intolerable for a capital, whose more and more affluent inhabitants aspire to a better quality of life .
So, Beijing has announced that a thousand polluting factories will be expelled from the city by 2020. This is a policy already underway, since the Chinese capital has already closed or moved, 2,400 factories deemed too polluting.
Beijing now wants to host only service companies or high technology. A change favored by very high real estate prices. But to solve the problem of pollution, it is the whole region should go upmarket, because fine particles do not stop at the border of the capital. In mid-July, the city of Tangshan, the first steel-producing city in China, located 150 kilometers west of Beijing, had to suspend production for more than a week, because the capital was too polluted.