Construction is to be suspended and use of official vehicles limited in cases where Beijing air quality plummets to "extremely bad,"Â under a new rule on curbing air pollution.
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The rule, to be enacted on Jan. 1, 2013, categorizes air pollution as "bad," "seriously bad," and "extremely bad" -- depending on a basket of indexes that include measurements of both fine and coarse air particles and ozone levels, meteorological officials announced on Friday.
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Yu Jianhua, an official with the Beijing meteorological bureau, said when pollution is 'extremely bad,' work on construction sites will be suspended, heavy-polluting factories will be ordered to cut emissions, and 30 percent of cars assigned to the Party and government officials pulled off the road.
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The level of air pollution in Beijing has not been optimistic over the past few years. The city's sky is often shrouded by yellowish smog.
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To curb pollution, the government has introduced a spate of measures including moving heavy polluters away from urban districts. It also started to use PM 2.5, a measurement of smaller air-borne particles which experts say can be more dangerous to human health, to accompany PM 10 to gauge pollution. Â