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Potentially polluting factories in China will have to pass stricter environmental impact assessments before construction approval is given, a senior official of the country's environmental watchdog organization said in Beijing Monday.

The focus will be on projects producing steel, cement, aluminum, iron alloy, calcium carbide and coke, said Pan Yue, vice-minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).

Pan told local environmental protection departments to immediately halt construction of all projects that had not passed environmental impact assessment.

"The projects that have been completed and put into operation illegally must upgrade their facilities in line with environmental protection regulations within a limited period of time, or will be shutdown," Pan warned.

At the end of last year, SEPA launched a campaign to clean up projects that run against the country's environmental impact assessment regulations, halting the construction of 139 projects involving billions of US dollars, including the Xiluodu hydroelectric dam in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

The campaign was hailed as an "Environmental Protection Storm" by Chinese media, as it directed against powerful polluters such as the ministry-level Three Gorges Corporation that is building the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze and Xiluodu.

"China's environmental problems cannot be resolved with one or two 'storms,'" said Pan. "A long-term mechanism is needed."

He said that SEPA will take concrete steps to improve environmental impact assessment system in line with international standard, including the establishment of a long-term supervision mechanism on the approval of environmental impact assessment.