the administrators of Hong Kong have set 2005 as the deadline within which time they will try and clean the city's heavily polluted air. The region's air pollution index hit an all-time high and its horizon was engulfed in thick clouds of yellow smog in the last week of March this year. So bad is the city's environment that experts say it could hamper business prospects with foreign investors disinterested in conducting business in its vitiated atmosphere.

Recently, the city's chief executive Tung Chee-Hwa pledged that the territory's air would be as clean as that in New York and London by the year 2005. But that is going the cost the city authorities a tidy sum. By the end of June, the legislature plans to approve a$ 200 million fund to help taxis to convert to the cleaner liquefied petroleum gas fuel.