China drawing up plans to take polluting diesel trucks off the road

BEIJING, Sept 13 (Reuters) - China is drawing up a plan to replace as many as 1 million heavy duty diesel trucks in its northern regions with ones that burn cleaner fuel by 2020, as Beijing ramps up its battle against dirty fuel, an industry source involved in the discussions said.

The Ministry of Transport (MoT) and Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) are considering proposals that include replacing vehicles with more modern trucks that use a higher grade of diesel called National 5, and using electric trucks or ones that run on liquefied natural gas, the source said. He declined to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to the media. (Reporting by Meng Meng and Josephine Mason; editing by Richard Pullin)