BEIJING, March 15 (Xinhua) -- The National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning agency, has outlined plans for different provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities to eliminate outmoded cement production facilities, sources with NDRC confirmed on Thursday.

The assignments should be completed by 2010, the NDRC has instructed.

China plans to eliminate obsolete capacity of 250 million tons by 2010, so as to achieve energy-efficient, environmentally friendly production.

According to the NDRC, if a province, autonomous region or municipality wants to launch a new dry-process cement production project, it should eliminate an outmoded facility at the same time, in order for the new project to be approved.

An NDRC source said Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang had already phased out almost all of their old-fashioned cement production facilities.

Some eastern provinces, including Shandong, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Hebei, had more outmoded cement production capacity to eliminate, while western regions had less, the source added.

The NDRC ordered that cement facilities each with an annual production capacity of less than 200,000 tons and facilities failing to meet environmental protection criteria and with unreliable quality should be eliminated by 2008.

The economic planning agency also said that by 2010, dry-process production facilities should make up 70 percent of the nation's cement production capacity.