The disclosure came after the government had approved the companies' financial plans.

Greenpeace campaigner Gloria Cheng said the approval shows the government is powerless to improve air quality.

But the government said it will impose an emission cap in license requirements to force the power companies to comply when they renew their operating licenses later this year.

Hong Kong officials have been working on air pollution with their Guangdong counterparts since the late 1990s and, in 2002, penned an agreement to cut the amount of four major pollutants - sulfur dioxides, nitrogen dioxides, respirable suspended particulates (RSPs) and volatile organic compounds - by 40 percent, 20 percent, 55 percent and 55 percent, respectively by 2010.

However, according to the government paper submitted to Legco, Hong Kong Electric and China Light and Power said they plan to meet most of the targets by 2011 or 2012.

Neither addressed the issue of reducing RSPs in their respective plans. A government source said both companies had a lack of funds.

``The companies said that meeting the target involved a huge investment,'' the source said.

Cheng accused the power companies of being more concerned with profits than Hong Kong citizens' health

and said government regulatory mechanisms were far from effective.

``The bargaining power of the government is too weak and this allows the power companies to test the water [by not meeting their targets],'' she said.

Friends of the Earth director Mei Ng said the companies were intentionally delaying plans to cut emissions until 2012, which is the deadline set by the Kyoto Protocol.

According to the protocol, industrialized countries must lower their greenhouse emissions by 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

But the government last night said the two companies were at fault and it would pressure them to speed up the process by imposing emission caps in their new licenses.

Should the companies fail to comply with their licensing requirements, they will be in breach of the Air Pollution Control Ordinance and could be fined HK$100,000 in the first instance, followed by a HK$200,000 fine for a second offence and then HK$10,000 daily. ``Air pollution cannot improve if there is no effective way to reduce emissions,'' the government source said.

In addressing the reduction of RSPs, the government says it will introduce, by 2008 at the earliest, an emission trading scheme for power plants in Hong Kong and Guangdong.

It says pollutants from power stations are the main source of air pollution in Hong Kong.

Power plants are the source of 92 percent of all sulphur dioxides recorded in Hong Kong, 58 percent of nitrogen dioxides and 46 percent of RSPs.

chester.yung@singtaonewscorp.com