Pollution costing China dear, says green report

BEIJING China is paying an increasing price for pollution brought about by economic development, says a report by the country's environmental protection academy.

The cost of environmental and ecological damage to the country soared to almost 1.4 trillion yuan ($222 billion) in 2009, an increase of 9.2 percent on the previous year. China spent 3.8 percent of that year's GDP to clean up the environment, according to the statistics in the recently released China Green National Accounting Study Report 2009.

"The damage to the environment not only results in health problems, but in financial loss as well," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a non-government organization protection agency based in the capital.