First 207 factories moving out of Beijing, most highly polluting

Tianjin municipality and Hebei province are reluctant to accept the first batch of 207 factories scheduled to move out of Beijing, as most of them are high-input, high-energy consumption, high-pollution and low-efficiency operations, according to First Financial Daily.

Beijing, faced with increasing pressure from its transportation, housing and environment, hopes to ease the strain by moving some factories to adjacent cities.

Factories are offered to Tianjin and Hebei to select.

But they showed no enthusiasm, even though they need more economic activity to accelerate development, a pressing issue in the collaborative development of Beijing and the less developed Tianjin and Hebei.

The 207 factories on the list are mostly high-input and low-output, such as chemical factories, construction companies and manufacturing plants.

Tianjin and Hebei are awaiting a second list in the hope of better choices.

What all sides need to do is to take a wider perspective instead of being concerned merely with regional interests, some news analysts said.