Smog won't hurt Beijing's Winter Olympics bid

BEIJING - Beijing will take a series of measures to tackle its environmental problems and is confident they will not derail its bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, an official said on Thursday.

Beijing has formulated 84 measures to deal with environmental issue and air pollution, said Li Shixiang, Beijing's executive vice mayor, at the ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress, the top legislature.

Beijing is expected to cut its current coal consumption by more than half to 10 million tonnes a year by 2017. It will also impose tough controls over industrial pollution and dust fall from construction sites, while reducing the number of newly added vehicles every year to 150,000, said Li.

He said the Chinese capital will benefit from the experience of successfully holding the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Beijing and Zhangjiakou City in neighboring Hebei Province will launch a joint bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) announced in early November 2013.

Beijing will bid to stage the ice events while Zhangjiakou will seek hosting rights for snow sports, according to the COC.