Economic slowdown will not change China environment policies: ministry

China will maintain its environmental protection goals and will not ease off on trying to achieve them even as the economy slows, an environment ministry official said on Thursday.

The cabinet last year issued a guide for some important anti-pollution targets up to the end of 2020 and there will be no adjustments of them, said Xu Bijiu, director general of the general office at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

“It’s like ... rowing a boat against the current,” Xu told a media briefing in Beijing.

“We have no other choice but to go forward.”  China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed to 6.0% year-on-year in the third quarter, the weakest in at least 27-1/2 years amid a bruising trade war with the United States, and business owners in industrial areas like Henan province say they are being hit hard by the environmental crackdown.