An official from the Guangdong Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau said his bureau is forging closer ties with its counterpart in the neighboring Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to fight air pollution.
   
Starting in the first quarter of 2005, both sides will jointly launch 16 monitoring stations to further monitor the air quality in the southern Chinese region, particularly in the prosperous Pearl River Delta that borders Hong Kong and Macao, said the official, who preferred to remain anonymous.
   
And the online monitoring stations are expected to cover all the cities in the Pearl River Delta in the next few years.
   
A delegation headed by Li Qing, director of the Guangdong Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau visited Hong Kong on Wednesday to seek more co-operative opportunities.
   
In addition to participating in the fifth meeting of the Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Working Group on Sustainable Development and Environment Protection there, the delegation has met Sarah Liao, secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works, and other major Hong Kong environment officials for expanding co-operation in curbing air pollution in the region, said the official.
   
And both sides have agreed to soon set up a special task force that consists of officials and experts from the two sides to promote the use of energy-saving and clean production equipment and technologies in the Pearl River Delta region, the official told China Daily.
   
He said the quickly growing number of vehicles are the cause of more than 80 per cent of the air pollution in Guangdong and become the culprit of the province's worsening air.
   
In another development, the air pollution index in Guangzhou recorded a successive eight days of more than 100 between December 14 and 21, indicating a slight air pollution in Guangdong provincial capital.

(China Daily December 24, 2004)