"Hong Kong's air pollution is increasingly the topic of international as well as local comment," US Consul General James B Cunningham said at a business lunch Tuesday, citing the CNN recent report that " pollution from coal-burning plants in China is now reaching the West Coast of the US."

He noted that Hong Kong plays a vital role in the development of the mainland, whose rapid economic development is "lifting millions out of poverty."

ADVERTISEMENT

"But in the short space of only a decade, the increased prosperity of the Pearl River Delta has produced the unintended consequence of air pollution of alarming proportions," he said.

"Although Hong Kong's own traffic and power generation contribute to the smog we breathe, studies estimate that 80 percent of the air pollution is created by power generation, factories, and motor vehicles in the Pearl River Delta."

He said more than 70,000 factories in the Pearl River Delta are owned or financed by Hong Kong businesses and "60 percent of inbound investment in Guangdong province comes from Hong Kong."

Business "should and must" take the lead in solving air pollution in the region, Cunningham said.

He told the lunch meeting that environmental agencies from the United States and China have been cooperating on a "pollution prevention and energy efficiency" program since May last year.

This program is based on a five- year-old cooperative agreement between the US Environmental Protection Agency and China's State Environmental Protection Administration.

It appears regularly on the agenda at the annual US-PRC Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meeting.

Cunningham said the Asian Development Bank joined the program last month to offer loan guarantees and US Export-Import Bank export credits to enable Hong Kong commercial banks to make capital loans.

Under performance contracts signed with Hong Kong corporate parents, these companies advise their mainland factories, power plants and real estate developments on how to reduce pollution and use less energy and raw materials, which also cut costs.

"The business communities in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta must work with government and with each other," Cunningham said.

"Don't wait for governments to solve the problem."

In May last year, Secretary for Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao Sau-tung was criticized by lawmakers who claimed the government has wasted more than HK$1.4 billion on air pollution controls since 1999 only to see the problem grow worse.

Liao acknowledged that air pollution control "as a whole" had not been successful.