China is considering a  major campaign of environmental impact assessment in the fast-growing cement, steel and aluminium sectors to cool down excessive growth.
“We will firmly close those enterprises that cannot meet the government’s minimum pollution emission standards,” commented Zhang Lijun, department director of the State Environment Protection Administration, at the closing ceremony for a three-year emissions trading pilot project between the Chinese environment agency and the US Environmental Defense organisation.

The pilot programme between the two organisations has been successfully implemented in Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanxi and Henan provinces, Shanghai and Tianjin municipalities and Luizhou City in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.