How leaders and an army of staff turned Beijing's grey into 'Apec blue'
State media give more details on the lengths taken to curb smog for this month's summit
More than 400,000 officials across several provinces were involved in this month's huge mission to cut smog and ensure there were blue skies over Beijing for the Apec summit.
Revealing new details yesterday of the efforts, the , a newspaper under the control of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said President Xi Jinping , Premier Li Keqiang and Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli took a direct role in leading the clean-up.
Xi and Li issued numerous written instructions on measures to curb air pollution and Zhang chaired meetings and oversaw the anti-smog campaign.
Zhou Shengxian , the Minister of Environmental Protection, said 434,000 staff were involved in the Apec blue-sky mission orchestrated by the central government, Beijing, Tianjin , Hebei , Shanxi , Inner Mongolia , Shandong and Henan .
Their work included inspecting 60,100 industrial plants and 123,000 other ventures including construction sites and petrol stations.
About 10,000 plants had to suspend production and 39,000 others were told to limit the hours they operated, with round-the-clock supervision by officials, the report said.
