Beijing will ban gasoline-powered vehicles that fail to meet emission standards starting Jan 1, 2016.

Vehicles will be banned from entering the city's Sixth Ring Road unless they meet the National Emission Standard II, according to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau.

Beijing currently imposes the National Emission Standard V for vehicles, similar to the Euro V standard in Europe. The city adopted the National Emission Standard I in 1999 and the National Emission Standard II in 2004. With each new standard, pollutants dropped by 30 percent to 50 percent per vehicle.

Beijing plans to introduce policies to reduce the use of vehicles. At a Tuesday conference on pollution prevention and control, it also announced a plan to research traffic congestion.

Beijing has eliminated huangbiaoche, or "yellow-label cars", which failed to meet the National Emission Standard I by the end of last year, it was announced at the conference.

Beijing scrapped 1.44 million old vehicles between 2011 and last year. More than 90 percent of those vehicle owners bought new vehicles, contributing 8.1 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) in taxes to the municipal government, according to the bureau.

Beijing currently has 5.57 million vehicles, which discharge 700,000 tons of pollutants annually. Vehicle discharge is the top cause of pollution in the city.

- Xinhua