70% of inspected firms broke environment laws

Campaign to improve air quality in northern regions successful

About 70 percent of companies visited by inspectors in the past two weeks were violating environmental rules, said the national environmental authority, which plans to strengthen enforcement against air pollution to increase blue skies in northern regions.

"In the ongoing yearlong inspection in 28 cities in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and neighboring provinces of Shandong, Shanxi and Henan, inspectors checked 4,077 companies, of which 2,808 were found to have various violations," Tian Weiyong, head of the monitoring department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said on Friday.