BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- According to officials with the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, the environmental news isnot all bad. They claimed on Thursday that the capital has seen a drop in pollutant discharges.

    The claim comes a day or two after it was confirmed that the nation had flunked its 2006 environmental target for pollutant emission reductions.

    Sulfur dioxide emissions dropped 5.2 percent in Beijing last year, and chemical oxygen demand (or COD, a major index of water pollution) was down by 7.9 percent, said Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the Beijing Environmental Protection bureau.

    The Beijing municipal government took a number of measures to address pollution last year, including requiring the 1,479 furnaces in the city to use clean coal, and thermoelectric factories to install desulfurizing facilities, according to Du.

    It also built sewage processing factories in suburban districtssuch as Pinggu and Fengtai to deal with water pollution, said Du, adding that these measures have produced a favorable impact on theenvironment.

    Du said Beijing has set another ambitious goal in 2007 to cut COD and sulfur dioxide discharges by three percent and ten percentrespectively.

    The polluted capital set a 245-day "blue sky" target for this year, after beating the 2006 air-quality target with 238 days of reasonable air quality.

    But the city has little reason to be optimistic. Every day 1000new cars take to the roads in Beijing and pedestrians choke in theexhaust fumes.

    China's goal is to cut pollutant emissions by 10 percent in thefive-year national development plan (2006-2010), with a two percent decrease every year.

    However, according to calculations by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), COD increased by 1.9 percent andsulfur dioxide emissions rose 2.4 percent in 2006. Only Beijing and five other provinces or municipalities fulfilled their pollution emission goals.