GUANGZHOU: Guangdong's relatively clean inland areas will face a growing threat from pollution if environmental problems are not properly handled during the industrial transfer, a government report said on Wednesday.

Twenty-eight industrial parks in the province's inland cities, designed to accommodate labor-intensive industries from the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, do not have proper water treatment facilities, the provincial development and reform committee said in the report. Three of the parks, in Heyuan, Dianbai and Meizhou, are building sewage disposal factories, but none was operational at the end of September.

The other 25 parks simply don't have such facilities, the report said. "The environmental problem in these industrial parks remains a big concern," it said. The committee's findings were the latest concern about the green cost during the province's industrial transfer campaign.

Earlier this month, Wen Simei, vice-chairman of the people's political consultative conference of Guangdong, was quoted by Nanfang Monthly as saying that as many as 70 percent of the 28 parks failed to meet green standards required by the provincial government.

Wu Dui, an expert from the Guangdong meteorological bureau, said neglect of the environment had led to deterioration of some emerging cities, the magazine said.

Vice-Governor Lin Musheng said the government will invest more than 40 billion yuan from now until 2012 to help less developed areas build environmental protection facilities.