As part of their city-wide environmental protection efforts, local authorities in Beijing are shutting down 2,500 small companies to address the growing problem of smog that continues to blanket the city, according to Chinese state media. 

The districts of Fengtai, Fangshan, Tongzhou and Daxing have been directed to to shut down a total of 2,500 firms by the end of 2016. The entire city is expected to complete the enviromental protection drive by 2017.

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Authorities in Beijing have been under pressure to do more to curb the growing pollution levels in the city as smog continues to blanket the sky.

According to an official, in recent years, structural adjustments in Beijing has shown significant improvement in terms of cutting down the number of heavy pollution sources. However, small establishments like restaurants, hotels, bathhouses, on the other hand, have continued to grow and have contributed to the damaging ecology of the city.

According to Xinhua, Beijing Vice Mayor Li Shixiang has asked safety and risk assessment personnel as well as law enforcement officers to look into also restricting the activities of small polluters. The city is aiming to completely abandon the use of coal in six downtown districts within two years and aid households to shift from coal to clean energy in five years. 

China is said to be the largest coal producer in the world as the use of coal accounts for over 60 percent of the country's power source. Thus, Beijing aims to lessen its use of coal by 500,000 tonnes this year and shut down coal-fired broilers in the entire city by 2020.

Despite effort to counter air pollution, the city's average PM2.5 reading last year reached 80.6 microgram per cubic meter - about 1.3-fold higher than normal standards. The density of deadly particles in the atmosphere also increased to almost 76 percent year-on-year between November 15 and December 31, 2015. 

TagsPollution, beijing smog, Coal use, china carbon emissions