The vast majority of Chinese cities monitored for pollution fail to meet Beijing-set standards, China's vice-minister of environmental protection says. China is mulling declaring "war" on the pollution resulting from the country's rapid economic growth.

Seventy-one out of 74 cities monitored in China over 2013 did not meet state environmental standards with various degrees of problems, vice-minister of the Chinese Environmental Protection Ministry, Wu Xiaoqing, has announced.

Speaking on the sidelines of the annual parliament session in Beijing, Wu admitted that China was suffering the consequences of rapid industrialization.

"When we were chasing GDP growth, we were also paying the price in pollution, and this price is heavy, in fact massive," the Chinese official told reporters, Reuters quotes.

Of the cities inspected, only Haikou in the island province of Hainan, the Tibetan capital Lhasa and the coastal resort city of Zhoushan met standards. A total of 3.7 million people live in those cities combined. The others have been struggling to cope with such problems as urban smog, polluted water supplies and industrial contamination of land, causing growing public concern.

According to Wu, the country's pollution problems can only be solved by fundamental changes in its resource-intensive economy. For that, "upgrading" and diversifying Chinese economy have been included in the government's agenda.

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