Combination photo taken on Aug. 5, 2016 (upper) and Dec. 20, 2016 shows a sharp contrast of air quality in an ancient town of Taierzhuang, east China's Shandong Province.(Xinhua/Gao Qimin)
NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL
Liu Lijuan, a fruit and vegetable vendor in Zhaoxian County, Hebei Province, has had a hard time this winter. Most of her customers are migrant workers at nearby factories and construction sites, but they have not earned much due to work shut-downs amid the smog.
"I cannot make one yuan (0.14 U.S. dollar) selling a box of apples," she grumbled. "I used to earn 80 to 100 yuan a day, but now I cannot sell 100 yuan worth of produce."
Hebei, one of China's major steel and coal mining provinces, has shut down thousands of factories, construction sites, and even fried-food stalls under red alerts. Still, the PM2.5 reading in many regions has exceeded 500 micrograms per cubic meter. In its capital city of Shijiazhuang, the reading passed 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter of air at 1 p.m. Monday.
"Our company has been ordered to halt production since Nov. 20, and 160 of our workers have been temporarily laid off," said Tian Pengjie, staff at a gypsum factory in the provincial capital.
China has planned to cut steel capacity by between 100 and 150 million tonnes, as well as coal capacity by 500 million tonnes by 2020.
This year, it had retired 45 million tonnes of steel and 250 million tonnes of coal production capacity by the end of October, meeting its full-year goals ahead of schedule.
But problems have also emerged, especially in some companies seeking to add capacity as an unexpected demand-supply gap pushes up prices of steel and coal products.
In one case, Anfeng Steel Co., Ltd. was found to have built a new blast furnace without government approval in Changli County in Hebei's Qinhuangdao City.
Five provincial officials and 12 city and county officials have been investigated in the case, and the company's legal representative has been detained on suspicion of damaging environmental resources, according to the provincial meeting held earlier this month.
Even under the red alerts, companies have also failed to suspend production as required.
Xu Ganlu, deputy governor of Henan Province, said power consumption volume of the nearly 3,000 companies that were supposed to suspend production had not been reduced, indicating they did not halt their production at all.
Another 900 companies ordered to limit their production did not make any reductions, said Xu.
