The investment will be used to improve monitoring in many aspects, including the amount of pollutants, air quality, water quality in major rivers, coastal seas, ecological conditions and information transmission.

In three years, China will have automatic air monitoring in 259 cities and automatic water quality monitoring at 98 spots on 10 major rivers. By then, it will be able to monitor the industries, which produce 65 percent of the total pollutants in the country.

Up to now, 474 automatic air monitoring systems have been set up in 179 cities, and 80 automatic water monitoring stations are working well on major rivers. Some 47 cities have started daily reports and a forecasting service for air quality.

(Xinhua News Agency December 17, 2002)