China says polluting industry still growing too fast, heavy smog alert for Beijing

[World News]

China's energy-hungry, high-polluting industries continued to grow too fast in 2013, putting "huge pressures" on the environment and causing air quality to worsen, the country's pollution agency said on Tuesday. Premier Li Keqiang "declared war" on pollution in a major policy address this month, but China has long struggled to strike a balance between protecting the environment and keeping up economic growth. China is still too slow in reforming its resource-intensive economy, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a statement on its website (www.mep.gov.cn). Slower wind speeds than usual in northern China were an additional contributing factor last year.

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