Minister refutes air quality survey

China's environment minister shot down claims that Beijing's air quality test results during the 2008 Olympics were inaccurate and blamed the allegations on the media's subsequent exaggeration of the capital's pollution.

Zhou Shengxian praised Beijing for its efforts in improving air quality during a panel discussion on Friday at the Global Think Tank Summit.

Zhou pointed his finger at, but did not name, an embassy in Beijing that made assumptions that the air quality results for last summer's Olympic Games were inaccurate. He said the embassy had installed its own air quality monitoring equipment for measuring PM 2.5 (particles less than 2.5 microns).