Years of statistical analysis show that about 80 percent of the dust causing Beijing’s dusty weather comes from beyond the national border, Ren Zhenhai, an academician with the Chinese Environmental Science Academy said here Monday.

Ren made the remark while delivering a report to the Environment and Resources Protection Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC).

Mongolia is one of the main sources of the dusty weather in most regions of north China, especially of Beijing. Ren and five other experts also made reports on air quality, water pollution, environmental protection of the west and the environmental goals and measures of the country’s 10th Five-Year Plan.

Ren pointed out that the foreign dust sources that bring about dusty weather in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region mainly lie in the deserts of Kazakhstan and Russia.

Since Beijing is now developing very fast, some of the dusty weather in Beijing is due to the vast number of construction sites and large amount of bare land, he said.

Ren concluded that several elements cause dusty weather in Beijing, namely, the overall climate, deterioration of the environmental system in the locality and neighboring regions, local construction sites and bare land.

(Beijingnews.com.cn 07/03/2001)