THE clean-up of China will cost US$200 billion, most of which must come from overseas investment, according to Yu Yuefeng, vice-president of the China Association of Environmental Protection Industry.
Mr Yu said it would cost $15 million to clean the city of Guangzhou alone.
Pollution control was beyond China's means, but investing in the mainland's environmental protection meant having a stake in the market for green technology to emerge in the next two to five years, he said.
The Private Sector Committee Environment Centre estimated the global market for environmental technologies to reach $600 billion by the turn of the century.
''We will need investments internationally and locally. Environmental degradation is an obstacle in the market which cannot be solved by China alone,'' Mr Yu said.
He called on foreign companies to help China develop its own technology to stop environmental degradation resulting from massive industrial development.
''Chinese technology is cheap and practical, but only for other Asian centres. We will follow a basic strategy to use foreign investment in order to exploit the market and export overseas,'' he said.