Due to illegal emissions of waste, four Shenzhen companies' bank loan applications have reportedly been suspended by the bank.

The People's Bank of China Shenzhen Branch says it has stopped the four unnamed companies' applications for more than RMB100 million in loans. Shenzhen has now included enterprises' environmental credit ratings into the National Enterprise Credit Ratings Index, which says that an enterprise's application for a bank loan will be refused if it violates environmental rules.

These four companies are reportedly either engaged in circuitry paneling or plating. In the first quarter of this year, they were punished by the local environmental department for emitting waste water and were asked to rectify within a given period of time. However, local media reports little progress has been made by those companies in improving their environmental standards over the past few months.