Air pollution is also responsible for 440,000 hospital bed days and 11 million doctor visits each year, the new study by Hong Kong-based think tank Civic Exchange found.

“We estimate that there are about 10,000 deaths occurring which are attributable to daily pollution, deaths which are potentially avoidable,” said Anthony Hedley, a professor in the department of community medicine at Hong Kong University, who was part of the team conducting the study.

“Our estimates are very conservative,” he told reporters at the launch of the report, “A price too high.”

The researchers calculated the price of pollution at 6.7 billion yuan ($ 968 million) every year in health costs and productivity losses. Satellite images show that the situation worsened between 2003 and 2006, the year that the data was taken from.

The area studied by a team of public health and environmental scientists stretched from Hong Kong and Macau to the Pearl River Delta, which has become a home for thousands of factories during China's economic boom over the past 30 years.

The team behind the study called on the Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong governments to adopt an overall air quality management framework tighten air quality standards and provide real-time pollution data to the public.

It also said Hong Kong should make immediate efforts to reduce emissions from land and sea transport.

Some business groups say Hong Kong’s poor air quality is harming the city’s ability to attract senior managers and compromising Hong Kong's position as an international finance centre.