Greener growth focus required

The Ministry of Environmental Protection recently dispatched 280 inspectors from other places to 28 cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to check whether their key industries have carried out pollution treatment as required.

The practice of choosing non-local inspectors for this work is aimed at ensuring independent and objective enforcement of the environmental protection law.

In April, the top environment watchdog sent a team of 5,600 inspectors from elsewhere to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, which is blighted by severe air pollution, to monitor local environmental protection efforts. And at the end of August, 102 environment inspection teams were again dispatched to a number of cities in the region to oversee local governments and enterprises on environmental issues. Such third-party inspections, including the latest one, have ensured independent and objective assessment of the region's environmental conditions and local governments' implementation of the country's environmental protection standards and regulations.