Environmental pollution has cost China's capital Beijing over 11.6 billion yuan (about US$1.5 billion) in economic losses in 2004, amounting to 1.92 percent of the city's GDP, according to a government report.

"Air pollution was a major cause for the losses, accounting for more than 81 percent of the total loss," said Du Shaozhong, deputy director and spokesman of the Beijing environment protection bureau. It's the first time Beijing has issued a report of its "green GDP", which is calculated by subtracting economic losses incurred by pollution from the GDP. "The calculation formula is still not complete, as it did not include pollution caused by noise and radioactive substances," said Yu Xiuqin, deputy director of the municipal Bureau of Statistics, adding that they will improve the calculation method by taking all environment-related factors into account.

Beijing is among the first batch of cities to pilot the Green GDP calculation, after the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) announced the national figure in September last year.

According to SEPA statistics, environmental pollution caused China 511.8 billion yuan (about US$64 billion) in economic losses in 2004, which amounted to 3.05 percent of national GDP that year.

Since 1998, Beijing has invested over 119.2 billion yuan (about US$15.3 billion) in environmental protection.

(Xinhua News Agency February 15, 2007)