Mar. 3 - China will pour 2 billion yuan ($250 million) into measuring pollution and enforcing controls as it struggles to stem toxic emissions from its feverish industrial growth.

 

China's 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.

 

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 this week, Zhou told officials that strengthened monitoring would keep factories and officials under pressure to ensure they meet the reduction goal.

 

"A strict system for checking emissions reductions means strengthening the responsibility of government, a rigorous system for releasing data, and a system for pursuing culpability, and accepting the scrutiny of society and the public," Zhou said, according to a report on SEPA's Web site (www.sepa.gov.cn).