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China to shut plants to cut air pollution before the Olympics

China will shut coal-fired power plants, cement factories and chemical manufacturers near Beijing to reduce pollution before the Olympic Games in August.

Operators have been told they will be closed 30 days before the Olympics begin on Aug. 8 in Beijing, energy newsletter publisher Platts said, citing unidentified people.

Ten "major polluters" have already been shut and more than 15,000 old buses and taxis in Beijing and Tianjin have been pulled off the streets, the State Environmental Protection Administration said in a statement on its Web site on Feb. 1.

"The Olympics are the main theme this year so all the companies will go in line with the government's directives on the environment," said Zhou Xizeng, an equity analyst who covers steel companies at Citic Securities Co (中信證券) in Beijing. "Summer is a good time to cut supply because it isn't a peak season traditionally."

China's hosting of the Olympics will showcase an economy poised to become the biggest contributor to global growth this year. It is also the world's largest consumer and producer of steel and coal. With the expansion has come high levels of smog that has Olympic officials seeking promises of cleaner air and athletes threatening to skip the Games.

Haile Gebrselassie, the men's marathon world record holder, said that while he would attend the Aug. 8 to Aug. 24 Games, he might pull out at the starting line if conditions weren't safe enough, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

"If pollution is a serious problem I will not run," the newspaper quoted the 34-year-old Ethiopian, who has respiratory problems, as saying.

China's Shougang Corp (首鋼), parent of the only publicly traded steelmaker based in Beijing, will cut production by 4 million tonnes this year, it said last month.

The nation's second-biggest producer of construction-grade steel is building a 67.7 billion yuan (US$9.4 billion) plant in the northern province of Hebei as it moves operations out of Beijing to help reduce pollution in the capital.

The government said in May it would spend 25 billion yuan last year on environmental projects for the first Olympics to be held in the world's most populous nation.

China's environmental protection agency leads a working group, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Air Quality Supervision Group, set up in November 2006 to oversee efforts to address pollution before the Olympics. The group said it planned to close and restrict production at some polluting steel and coal-power plants in Beijing, Tianjin and four neighboring provinces.

The industrial and power plants that will be shut probably won't be allowed to reopen until after the Games end on Aug. 24, Platts reported.

The air quality supervision group didn't identify which polluters have been closed. It also said less-polluting gasoline is now being provided in Beijing.
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