On March 9, the government of the Chinese province of Hebei held a meeting on the issue of environmental protection, at which it reaffirmed its commitment to restricting pollution emissions from major industries including steel, building materials, chemicals, papermaking, electricity and others. The Hebei authorities also stressed they would continue to eliminate backward capacities in the various major industrial sectors and would work to improve the recycling of industrial wastes.
In 2010, Hebei Province eliminated backward annual production capacities including 10 million mt of iron smelting capacity, 2 million mt of steelmaking capacity, 1.26 million mt of coking capacity and 8.678 million mt of cement production capacity.