CHINA will pour 2 billion yuan (US$250 million) into measuring pollution and enforcing controls as it struggles to stem toxic emissions from its rapid industrial growth, State media reported Saturday.

The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) will use the money to figure out just how much pollution factories and other producers release and then hold them to targets for cutting emissions, the China Daily reported.

China has promised to cut major pollution emissions by 10 percent between 2006 and 2010, but last year the country failed to meet the annual target, SEPA officials have said.

At a meeting last week, Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, told officials that strengthened monitoring will keep factories and officials under pressure to ensure they meet the reduction goal.

In 2006, China’s sulphur dioxide output reached 25.9 million tons, an increase of 1.8 percent on the previous year, SEPA has estimated. But the country’s rickety monitoring system is vulnerable to distortion and meddling by growth-hungry officials.

(SD-Agencies)