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 1.4 billion U.S. dollars) was expected to generate revenues of 80 billion yuan (10.3 billion U.S. dollars) 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.

Xiamen residents have been forwarding a popular text message to friends and family asking them to join in their protest against the new plant, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

Zhao Yufen, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has proposed the plant be relocated to avoid the possible threat of pollution in the future. Xiamen is a coastal city known for its pleasant climate and clean environment. It is not suitable for a large-scale chemical plant, she said.