About 12,000 Chinese enterprises have been punished for discharging excessive pollutants during a national inspection, Pan Yue, vice-president of the State Environmental Protection Administration announced here Wednesday.

More than 6,800 of these enterprises would be shut down or have production suspended for serious violation of environmental protection laws, said Pan.

During the inspections, which started late June, the administration together with another five central government departments inspected 150,000 enterprises, most of them metallurgical and chemical plants.

The administration has also published a list of enterprises that had caused serious environmental damage.

The national inspections had greatly curbed excessive discharges of pollutants in some areas and remarkably improved local environments, Pan said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 25, 2003)