More than 2,000 hotels and restaurants have under orders moved out of various scenic spots and places of historical interest cross the country, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

Last Saturday, officials from the Ministry of Construction (MOC) held a meeting to discuss about clearing those unwanted buildings inside scenic spots and historical sites. At the meeting, vice minister of construction Qiu Baoxing said that since 2003, MOC has launched a nationwide campaign to deal with the problem. So far, MOC has turned down more than 1,000 construction proposals considered as detrimental to the environment and natural resources in scenic spots and historical sites. MOC has handled 10,752 cases and about 2,000 hotels, restaurants and holiday resorts built inside those spots and places have been torn down.

MOC has also carried out assessment work to see whether hotels and restaurants built in these scenic spots and historical sites are properly arranged. The assessement work shows that at present, there are still ten state-level scenic spots that haven't passed MOC's requirement and 40 scenic spots have barely passed its requirements. MOC has urged people working in these scenic spots to make rectification and finish all related work by the end of June, next year. If they still can't meet MOC requirement after the rectification work, their title as the state-level scenic spots will be cancelled.

(China News Service December 6, 2007)