Xiamen, a port city in east China's Fujian Province, has decided to put a highly polluting chemical project on hold amid fears of pollution, the city government said on Wednesday.

"The Xiamen city government has decided to suspend construction of the PX (paraxylene) plant in Haicang District," said vice mayor Ding Guoyan at a press conference.

Paraxylene is a petrochemical used to make purified terephthalic acid, a raw material for producing polyester film, packaging resin and fabrics.

The 10.8 billion yuan (about US$1.4 billion) was expected to generate revenues of 80 billion yuan (V10.3 billion) a year. Its planned location 16 kilometers from the city center has sparked pollution fears among the public.

The project was widely criticized as an "atomic bomb" and citizens of Xiamen sent nearly one million text messages via cell phones to pressure the government to abort it.

During the annual parliamentary session in March, 105 members of the country's top political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, expressed their disapproval of the project.