China's central government has dangled an $818 loot reward for its six most polluting regions to speed up the cleaning operation and curb the country's growing environmental problems.

Six of China's heaviest polluting regions are Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei Province, Shandong Province, Shanxi Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regions.

Listed in the central government's "Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control," the six regions to receive the necessary funding must do the following:

  • Beijing must close down by 2017 a total of 1,200 heavily-polluting enterprises;
  • Tianjin must be maintained at only 20 million tons, 5 million tons, and 14 million tons of its total output for steel, cement and coal production, respectively, by 2017;
  • Shanxi Province needs to slash total steel production capacity by 6.7 million tons;
  • Hebei Province must have slashed total steel production capacity by 60 million tons by 2017;
  • Inner Mongolia must reduce 4.59 million tons total cement production capacity; and,
  • Shandong Province must have slashed steel production capacity of 10 million tons by early 2015.

Also, the central government encourages Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong to slash annual coal consumption of 83 million tons by 2017.

Shanxi and Shandong, meanwhile, have been directed to reduce fine particle (PM2.5) density by 20 percent from their 2012 level.

China targets the following results over the next five years:

  • More than 10 percent reduction in PM density of the cities or above the prefecture level nationwide by 2017;
  • That the PM density in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta shall have been reduced by 25 percent, 20 percent and 5 percent respectively by 2017; and
  • That Beijing's average annual PM density controlled and maintained at 60 micrograms per cubic meter by 2017.