(ECNS) -- A total of 141 listed companies and their affiliates discharged pollutants in excess of China's national standards last year, the Beijing News reported, citing a pollution report by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), a non-profit organization based in Beijing.
The annual report, released in February, was based on official data from China's local environmental authorities and covered 1,365 enterprises, including 519 companies listed on the A-share market.
Of the companies, 25 were chemical companies, 20 public utilities and 11 were from the building materials industry. Together they accounted for nearly 40 percent of the total. Steel and extracting industries followed, with 10 and 9 enterprises on the blacklist, respectively.
The pollutants were mainly industrial waste gases and liquids, the report said.
On April 17, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection said it received complaints about 75 pollution cases in March, with the majority focusing on air pollution, followed by water pollution.
However, only 28 of the 141 listed companies and their affiliates, i.e. less than 20 percent, responded to the pollution rankings, according to the newspaper
The IPE report also showed that only 50 enterprises had environmental inspection or punishment records, accounting for less than 40 percent.
Wang Mingxuan, of the IPE, said that there are loopholes in law enforcement, and that some enterprises might have fabricated data during on-the-spot pollution inspections.
