China's capital city, Beijing, has launched a five-year 'pollution control programme', aimed at cleaning up the city's air before the arrival of the Olympic Games in 2008, which is likely to see a raft of emissions legislation intorduced.

The containment of air pollution is seen as the city's top environmental priority, and plans to effect it come as much of Asia follows the example of Europe and the US and introduces clean air standards.

The plan will revolve around the limitation of harmful emissions from the city's vehicles, a problem Beijing began to combat in January this year, when authorities imposed the EU's Euro II standards.

The first Chinese city to impose regulations, it now intends to introduce Euro III standards by 2005.

The campaign is made especially necessary by the number of cars crowding Beijing's streets: there were 1.9 million vehicles in the city at the end of 2002, a figure which is growing at a rate of around ten per cent each year.